Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura
With 20 months left for Tripura Assembly elections the All India Trinamool Congress has increased its politicking in the Northeastern state. A continuous stream of TMC leaders started arriving since July 28, Wednesday.
Following confinement of election strategist Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC team members in a city-based hotel in Agartala, three TMC leaders and a minister of West Bengal government arrived on July 28, Wednesday.
On July 30, Thursday, TMC heavyweights Derek O’Brien and Kakoli Basu Dastidar arrived reached Agartala. It is reported that the All India Trinamool Congress general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee is scheduled to arrive in Agartala on Friday.
TMC leaders Derek O’Brien, Bratya Basu, Ritabrata Banerjee and Kakoli Basu were welcomed by former Congress and BJP VP Subal Bhowmik and 40 others.
The TMC leaders will be staying in Tripura for couple more days with former Congress and BJP vice-president Subal Bhowmik, former BJP leader Prakash Das, Panna Dey, Premtosh Deb, etc. slated to join the party.
MP and TMC leader Derek O’Brian in a press conference on Thursday said “The young boys and girls arrived in Tripura for a professional assignment. Union Home minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a message to arrest these youths by adopting the old Gujarat model of 2002. The incident of confinement of I-PAC team members took place three days back. It is an important issue in Tripura. All opposition MPs are not given any chance to speak in Parliament. Mobile phones are tapped. TMC wants judicial inquiry on the Pegasus issue. When we arrived at the Hotel premises, a large contingent of Tripura police personnel stopped us. Are we terrorists? Trinamool Congress don’t fear at all”.