National, Tripura issues to dominate CPI-M meet in Delhi

New Delhi/Agartala, April 17 (IANS) Current national political issues and issues relating to election-bound Tripura are likely to dominate the two-day Central Committee meeting of the CPI-M in New Delhi starting from Tuesday, party sources said on Monday.

"The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo meeting is being held today (Monday) in New Delhi and the party’s two-day Central Committee meeting would start from tomorrow (Tuesday). At both meetings, prevailing political issues and matters relating to Tripura would be discussed," a CPI-M leader said.

He said Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, also a CPI-M politburo member, left Agartala for New Delhi on Sunday to attend the meeting and other Central Committee members from Tripura were on their way to Delhi.

The Left leader said that opposition parties, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had already started their campaign for the Tripura assembly elections, due in February next year.

"The BJP leaders are conspiring against the Left Front government in Tripura. The BJP-led government at the Centre has been reducing funds in various central projects, including MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), to put the state in an awkward position," the CP-M leader said.

Tripura’s ruling Left Front last week lodged a protest with the Election Commission against state BJP chief Biplab Kumar Deb following his alleged comments about manipulation of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in favour of his party in the upcoming assembly polls.

The Tripura BJP President, however, denied the allegations, saying he had said that the EVMs could not be manipulated.

Quoting media reports, the CPI-M-led Left Front lodged a protest with the Election Commission alleging that Deb, during a public meeting in western Tripura on April 12, had said that the results seen in Uttar Pradesh and Manipur assembly polls would be repeated in Tripura too and even if Chief Minister Sarkar would cast his vote for his party, it would go to ‘Lotus’, the BJP’s election symbol.

CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury wrote a separate letter to the Election Commission on the issue and demanded fool-proof workability of EVMs in Tripura polls.

A large numbers of leaders and workers from various parties, especially Congress, recently joined the BJP.