Clearly the CPM leadership, or precisely former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, former Minister Pabitra Kar and to some extent former Minister Manik Dey, are on desperate track to resuscitate the CPM in Tripura from its moribund phase. And the path that is evidently chosen to shed off the almost three years old hibernation is ‘offensive retaliation’ against what they alleged to be the BJP activists’ relentless attacks on their party cadres. Dhanpur remains the launching pad.
While Dhanpur has been reeling under palpable sense of uncertainty since Monday’s confrontations, a new flash point has emerged on Wednesday when both the CPM and BJP violently clashed in Udaipur leaving several lying on the road profusely bleeding and only to be rescued by Fire Service personnel.
The police personnel as it emerged from video footages easily available in social media now , seem totally hapless, or more precisely directionless, as the TSR and policemen are found walking or simply standing like a mere spectator as the political rivals armed to the teeth with lathis and daos got a field day attacking violently each other. The police performances in both Dhanpur and Udaipur were far from satisfactory.
This time, however, in both Dhanpur and Udaipur the CPM cadres with their branded strong lathis with red flag hanging are seen more aggressive and more violent. In their own language the violence and aggressive demonstrations are ‘resistance’. They reason that since the BJP IPFT came to power they were subjected to protracted attacks by the BJP activists and even Opposition leader Manik Sarkar was not allowed to move and hold political activities freely. Now they are up in arms, and motivated, to take the bulls by the horns.
It still remains to be seen how long such motivation remains to keep them running with elderly politicians taking the lead role. Aggressive politics or leading the street fighters for a political revival is definitely not Manik Sarkar’s cup of tea. He is made of different element. It will be hard for the septuagenarian to carry forward the foot soldiers of violent confrontations for long—at least for next 17 months, till the elections come.
Interestingly, the young leaders –who were never encouraged or groomed by the present hierarchy of the Marxists in the state for reasons best known to them- have not been seen in the forefront, or for that anywhere near the CPM foot soldiers.
On the other hand it will be naïve to believe that the BJP activists will bear the beating lying low. There are already statements from BJP leaderships that they will give the reply in the language that the CPM understands—which in other words mean, the ruling party will go for retaliation. It will not take big time for the BJP workers to come out of the initial shock resulted in for the sudden and unexpected violent responses from the CPM that they are facing in Dhanpur or Udaipur. The BJP has more young leaders-active leaders- and if indications are to be believed they will mobilize the saffron force to go all guns blazing whenever there will be any perceptible threat from the Marxists.
The next few months are thus going to be terribly violent days with new fronts opening up here and there—all of a sudden. Soon also there will also be new participants in the violence and aggressive politics –the regional parties, some of whom have already been making communal overtures in their activities and statements. These are certainly not the aberrations but part of well-designed strategy to prepare for the battle that will soon be fought.
At the end, the forewarning that is available even now is that the 2023 assembly elections are going to witness unprecedented violence and is to be definitely a blood soaked ones. Tripura is no stranger to such violent elections in a traditionally bipolar polity , but the point is it will be this time multipronged and multifaceted.
