Victory for peace, solidarity, dev, says Tripura Left Front

Agartala, Feb 28, 2013 : The Tripura Left Front committee on Thursday evening congratulated the state for voting in favour of CPI (M) led Left Front and said that the new government would be dedicated in fulfilling each poll promise made in the party’s election manifesto. Speaking to reporters at a press conference this evening at CPI (M) state headquarter in Melarmath, convener of Tripura Left Front committee – Khagen Das said that people from all sections of the society – students, farmers, labourers, employees etc have negated the euphoric call of change from opposition camp and has voted for peace, solidarity and development. The ruling alliance secured 50 out of 60 assembly constituency seats in 2013 state legislative assembly election. Congress led opposition alliance got 10 seats – one less than the 2008 assembly poll results.

Terming peace, solidarity among the state’s population and development as key causes behind the landslide victory of the Left Front, Das said, people of Tripura have voted for peace this season. He also asked party supporters across the state to remain peaceful despite the massive victory without any sign of violence or political retribution.

Big bang return of left front in Tripura

Agartala, Feb 28, 2013 : As anticipated Tripura's left front made a big bang return to power for the fifth consecutive time today since 1993, increasing its tally of seats from 49 to 50 and percentage of votes marginally, inflicting a massive drubbing on opposition Congress-INPT combine . While Congress was able to hold on to its tally of ten seats in the sixty member state assembly the INPT failed to open account as even the fading regional party’s president and erstwhile TNV militant leader Bijay Kumar Hrangkhawal suffered an ignominious defeat against the left front’s candidate Lalit Debbarma-a political greenhorn-from Ambassa (ST) seat in Dhalai district by a margin of 1037 votes. The biggest setback for Congress was the narrow defeat of its vice president and veteran leader Surajit Dutta from the Ramnagar assembly constituency in Agartala . Dutta who had won the seat five successive times since 1988 lost the seat by the narrow margin of 65 votes despite the total absence of Trinamool from the electoral arena and consequent non-division of anti-left votes. 

Early indications of the results were available as the counting commenced in 17 locations across the state from 8-00 in the morning. After the first round of counting leader of the opposition of Congress in Mohanpur assembly constituency in West Tripura district first trailed and then appeared to have lost the seat by more than three hundred votes. But on two successive recounting upon Nath’s demand he won the seat by 714 votes. Despite the statewide reverses Congress had a consolation of winning three of the four seats in Agartala town but the party’s domination of the state capital was dented as Surajit Dutta lost narrowly. However, the PCC president Sudip Roy Barman defeated his nearest CPI (M) rival Shankar Prasad Dutta rather comfortably by a margin of 2741 votes. 

Altogether five of the ten seats captured by Congress came from West Tripura while after a gap of long fifteen years the party opened its account in south Tripura district (renamed upon truncation as Gomati district) when Pranjit Singha won the R.K.Pur seat by a margin of 837 votes defeating the RSP leader and minister for science and technology Jaygobinda Debroy. The differences of opinion in Congress over the justification of alliance with regional INPT seemed justified as the INPT drew a blank while Congress’s indigenous leader Dibachandra Hrangkhawal defeated veteran CPI (M) leader and ADC’s executive member Gajendra Tripura by a margin of 1372 seats. This is the only seat won by Congress among six seats of Dhalai district. In neighbouring Unakoti district also Congress could win only one of altogether four seats when veteran leader Birajit Sinha narrowly retained the Kailasahar seat by a margin of only 485 votes. Similarly, in north Tripura district also the left front made a near clean sweep of seven seats , retaining six and losing only the Dharmangar town seat when the sitting MLA Biswabandhu Sen defeated his CPI (M) rival Amitava Dutta by a margin of 1844 votes.

Interestingly, in three of the state’s eight districts-south Tripura, Sipahijala and Khowai-Congress failed to win a single seat. The chief minister Manik Sarkar who had entered the fray from his pocket-borough , Dhanpur constituency won against Congress’s Shah Alam by a margin of 6017 votes, more than doubling up the margin of 2918 votes obtained in 2008. While only Jaygobinda Debroy of RSP lost the R.K.Pur seat , the remaining ten ministers in the left front cabinet retained their seats comfortably though the veteran minister for higher education and information Anil Sarkar won by the considerably reduced margin of 2132 votes. ‘My margin of victory was more than seven thousand in 2008, this has come come down mainly because of the delimitation as part of which fifteen thousand voters from my Pratapgarh assembly constituency were shifted to the newly created Sujyamoni Nagar constituency and seventy percent of them are my supporters, naturally my margin has gone down’ said Anil Sarkar. He attributed the good showing of the left front to the committed support of voters belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. ‘We won 19 of the 20 ST seats and 9 of the ten seats reserved for scheduled castes ;voters belonging to both the communities are our core strengths’ said Sarkar.

The CPI (M) party secretary Bijan Dhar and party spokesman Gautam Das congratulated the people for the ‘massive mandate’ they have given the left front and charged that Congress’s efforts at misleading the people have boomeranged on the party. However, the PCC president Sudip Roy Barman expressed his ‘shock and dismay’ over the poll outcome.

Left Front retains Tripura-for fifth straight term

Agartala, Feb 28, 2013 : Tripura's ruling Left Front Thursday stormed back to power in Tripura for the fifth straight term, delivering a humiliating blow to the Congress.

The Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) also increased its vote share compared to 2008, election officials said.

The Congress and its allies, the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) and the Nationalist Conference of Tripura were crushed, for the fifth consecutive time since 1993.

The CPI-M on its own won 32 seats of the total 44 results declared so far in the 60-member assembly and was leading in nine more seats.

Its allies, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI), won one seat each. The CPI lost a seat.

The Congress managed got 10 seats and was leading in one more. The INPT was leading in one constituency.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, 64, who has ruled Tripura since 1998, won from Dhanpur by a margin of around 5,000 votes. It was Sarkar's sixth win.

Finance Minister Badal Chowdhury posted the highest winning margin of 12,450 votes.

Commerce Minister Jitendra Chowdhury, School Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty, Information Minister Anil Sarkar, Tribal Welfare Minister Aghore Debbarma and all cabinet colleagues retained their seats by huge margins.

Teacher-turned-politician Anil Sarkar, 75, who is also a poet and writer, was re-elected on CPI-M ticket from Pratapgarh in western Tripura for a record ninth time.

Congress leader Ratan Lal Nath was also re-elected from Mohanpur while state Congress president Sudip Roy Barman retained his Agartala seat -- for the fourth time.

Former Tripura assembly speaker Jitendra Sarkar, who this time contested on Congress ticket, wrested Barjala seat from the CPI-M. Sarkar won by 254 votes defeating Jitendra Das.

In a significant development, CPI-M's Ratan Das wrested Ramnagar after a gap of 25 years. He defeated former state Congress chief and ex-minister Surajit Datta by just 15 votes.

"This is a great victory for the Left Front and shows its popularity and public support. Good governance is one of the key factors for the thumping victory," gloated CPI-M spokesperson Gautam Das.

"People voted for the Left to establish peace and development in all sectors," Das told IANS.

Former chief minister and Congress leader Samir Ranjan Barma and INPT president and former militant leader Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl were trailing.

Tripura made electoral history when a record 93.57 percent of the 2.3 million voters exercised their franchise Feb 14 to pick a 60-seat assembly. There were 249 candidates.

The Left Front has ruled Tripura since 1978 barring one term (1988-93).

In 2008, the Left registered a thumping victory. The CPI-M alone won 46 seats and partners CPI and RSP secured one and two seats respectively. The Congress bagged 10 seats and the INPT one.

tripurainfo.com's exit poll comes true, LF set for return

Agartala, Feb 28, 2013 : Tripura's highest-accessed website tripurainfo.com's exit poll , results of which were uploaded on February 25, on the final outcome of the February 14 assembly election has come true with the ruling Left Front emerging on top with altogether 50 seats in its kitty. The opposition Congress is all set for a massive drubbing with only 10 seats. After the results of tripurainfo.com's exit poll had been announced on February 25 the opposition Congress and a section of its lackeys in the media cried foul and hurled invectives at the website but the authenticity of the exit poll started coming true from the commencement of counting at 8-00 in the morning today. 

tripurainfo.com had forecast the return of the left front with the range of seats varying between 42 at the lowest limit and 52 at the highest limit. As things stand in the counting halls the left front's tally is likely to reach 50 itself . Among the results declared, leader of the opposition Ratanlal Nath has come out winners by the narrow margin of 775 votes after two consecutive recounting of ballots-in the first counting Nath had lost the seat. Among the stalwarts chief minister Manik Sarkar has established a near unbeatable lead while finance minister Badal Chowdhury , forest minister Jiten Chowdhury and minister for school education Tapan Chakraborty have almost achieved victories by huge margins while the minister for higher education and veteran leader Anil Sarkar is leading by a narrow margin in Pratapgarh assembly constituency. The minister for tribal welfare Aghore Debbarma has won from the Marxist stronghold Asharambari constituency in Khowai subdivision by more than seven thousand votes.

Indo-Bangla border to be sealed along Tripura frontier from Thursday

Agartala, Feb 27, 2013 : The entire stretch of Indo-Bangla international border along Tripura frontiers would be sealed from Wednesday as standard precautionary measure ahead of the counting of votes, a highly placed source in the state election department said on Wednesday . Chief Electoral Officer Ashutosh Jindal mentioned it as an upcoming strategy recently. Referring to the issue, the source on Tuesday mentioned that the department has had a dialogue with BSF officials in the Tripura frontiers over sealing the border till counting process gets over.

Meanwhile, nearly all observers deployed for the counting process in the state have reached Agartala by Tuesday evening leaving one. Sixty observers were engaged by Election Commission of India to oversee the counting of votes in Tripura for 2013 assembly election. 59 have made it to Agartala by Tuesday. The last one is scheduled to arrive by February 27. All of them would be deployed to man their respective workstations by Thursday itself, the source said adding that technical support team from the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) has arrived in the state. They would ensure that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) behave sane during the entire stretch of counting process, the source said with a wink!

Above 72,000 candidates will appear in HS, Madhyamik examinations

Agartala, Feb 27, 2013 : Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE) run Higher Secondary (HS+2) and Madhyamik (secondary) examinations begin from March 4 and 5 respectively.

Addressing a media gathering here at TBSE’s office on Tuesday, board president Dr Amitabha Debroy said, altogether 24,189 students will appear for HS examinations including HS-Fazial this year. More 47,926 students will also appear for Madhyamik and Madhyamik –Madrassa examinations from March 5 next.

Dr Debroy added that students from 330 schools across the state will sit in HS examinations while the number of schools for Madhyamik stands at 859.

He said, a total of 3 students including female candidates from correctional home will also appear in the HS examinations and six more physically disabled including three blind students also sit in the HS examinations.

HS examinations will be conducted in 53 centers and 67 venues, said Debroy adding that similarly seven male candidates from correctional homes will appear in the Madhyamik examinations and 21 physically disabled candidates including 8 blind students will appear for Madhyamik examinations.

For Madhyamik examinations 135 venues would be set up in 75 centers across the state and there will be also separate examinations centre for the students afflicted with communicable diseases, said Debroy.

Northeast ignored in rail budget: Manik Dey

Agartala, Feb 26, 2013 : Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal largely ignored the northeast in the rail Budget and focussed only mainland states, a minister in Tripura’s Left Front government said Tuesday.

“Like previous years, the infrastructure and industry-starved northeastern region was again ingnored in the railway budget for fiscal 2013-14,” state Transport Minister Manik Dey said.

“People of Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and southern Assam had long been struggling for conversion of the meter gauge track into the broad gauge beyond Lumding in southern Assam. If Lumding-Badarpur section is not converted, the railway track upto Agartala and also in Manipur and Mizoram cannot be converted to broad gauge,” Dey told reporters.

The minister said that the gauge conversion work had started in 1996 beyond Lumding and Prime Minister Manmohan singh had declared it as a national project many years back, but in 17 years, 35 percent of the work is yet to be completed.

“The prime ministers of India and Bangladesh had signed an agreement in January 2010 for linking Agartala railway station with the Akhaurah railway station in Bangladesh by setting only 15-km new railway track so that a train could be introduced from Agartala to Kolkata via Bangladesh, but there is no mention of it in the railway budget,” Dey said. 

Tripura capital Agartala is the newest station of the Indian Railways, and came up on the country's rail map in October 2008.

Bangladesh operates regular train services along the border on its side up to Akhaurah and various other places, just opposite several sub-divisional towns in Tripura.

The minister alleged that the hopes and aspirations of the people of the landlocked northeast were ignored by the railway minister.

He said that the budget also did not spell out anything on the implementation of the five national railway projects in the northeast, the work on which was being carried out very slowly due to paucity of funds and other problems.

Bansal in his budget speech said that for the first time the state of Arunachal Pradesh has been brought into the rail network and the railways will commission the Harmuti-Naharlagun line this year. 

“The works on the new line railway project to connect state of Manipur are in full swing,” the railway minister said adding that the gauge conversion work on Lumding-Silchar and Rangia-Murkongselek, both in Assam are on fast track.

Bansal announced that 25 skill development centres would be set up across the country to develop the skills of the youths in railway related trades. Of the 25, centers, four would be set up in northeast ---Agartala (Tripura), Dimapur (Nagaland), Lumding (Assam) and Imphal in Manipur.

Stage set for counting of votes on Thursday

Agartala, Feb 26, 2013 : The stage is all set for counting of votes for all sixty assembly constituencies of Tripura on February 28 next with three tier security arrangements.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has arranged 17 counting venues across the state, where sixty counting compartments have been arranged for counting of polled votes at a time.

The ECI has appointed 60 counting observers for sixty constituencies and the observers have started arriving in the state from Monday, said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashutosh Jindal, adding that the appointment of micro-observers and necessary training of counting personnel have also been completed.

The CEO of Monday conducted video conference with all the Returning Officers (ROs) to know the arrangements for counting of polled EVMs.

Tripura Election department sources said that all the ROs during video conference briefed the CEO about the arrangements made for counting to be held on February 28.

Election official also briefed the ROs on how to use ‘genesis software’ in maintaining date management properly. The genesis software will ensure on-line election results round wise as well as final results of each segment. 

This is for the first time, people can get the updated results of each rounds through ECI’s website, said Election department added that the ECI has instructed concern officials to maintain the update of results after each round of counting through its ‘genesis software.

Along with other counting centers of Tripura, elaborate arrangements have been made at Umakanta Academy and Umakanta English Medium School where counting of 14 Assembly segments for Sadar, Jirania and Mohanpur subdivisions would be held.

Counting for eight seats- Barjala, Agartala, Ramnagar, Town Bardowali, Banamalipur, Pratapghar, Badharghat and Suryamaninagar will held at Umakanta Academy (old), counting of remaining seats- Simna, Mohanpur, Bamutia, Khayerpur, Majlishpur and Mandai Bazar will be counted at Umakanta English Medium School. 

As many as 600 counting supervisors, counting assistants and micro observers will be engaged in the counting process in both the counting halls.

Sources added that all preparations have been completed in other counting centers of the state with additional deployment of security forces.

Agartala, other locations to emerge as skill hub for railway related trades

Agartala, Feb 26, 2013 : Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal presenting the railway budget-2013 at Parliament on Tuesday declared that with a view to contributing to the national skill development programme of the government of India, the Railways ministry would impart skills to the youth in railway related trades in 25 locations spread across the length and breadth of the country. 

These locations are: Agartala, Alwar, Ankleshwar, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Dimapur, Imphal, Jagdalpur, Jais, Katihar, Kazipet, Kollam, Koraput, Lumding, 

Mangalore, Murshidabad, Nagpur, Naharlagun, Pathankot, Ranchi, Ratlam, Shimla, Sirsa, Srinagar and Tiruchchirappalli.

States to tighten border security for vote count

Agartala, Feb 25, 2013 : Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland have been told to tighten security on their international and inter-state borders ahead of the vote count in the three states Feb 28.

"Security along the borders will be further tightened in view of the counting of votes," an Election Commission official told IANS Monday.

The union home ministry has also directed the states to take steps to seal the international border by deploying additional Border Security Force and Assam Rifles troopers.

The BSF guards India's border with Bangladesh while Assam Rifles is posted along the Myanmar border.

Four northeastern states -- Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam -- share a 1,880-km border with Bangladesh. Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh share a 1,640-km border with Myanmar.

Most of the international border is unfenced and runs through dense forests and mountainous terrain, making it porous.

The official said the poll panel has asked the states to ensure three-tier security around the counting centres.

Central paramilitary troopers will be posted inside the counting centres, while other security forces will guard the outer areas.

Assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland, having 60 seats each, were held Feb 14 (in Tripura) and Feb 23.

LF to make a clean sweep in Tripura again: opinion poll prediction by Agartalainfo.in

Agartala, Feb 24, 2013 : Tripura’s premiere news and views website www.tripurainfo.com today released its opinion poll for the 11th state legislative assembly elections, which was held from February 14 last.

As per the opinion poll conducted tripurainfo.com predicted that Left Front allies can get minimum of 42 seats and maximum of 52 seats, whereas opposition Congress allies can secure minimum of 8 seats and maximum of 18 assembly constituencies. The opinion poll also predicted that at least 10 seats have fifty-fifty chances for both the rival formations.

During the February 14-23, the survey was conducted in all 60 assembly constituencies of the state. The survey was held in 300 polling stations and a total of 15,558 respondents statement were recorded through online and offline.

Tripurainfo’s traditional opinion polls technique was first used 15 years ago before 1998 assembly election and since then opinion polls survey in 2003 and 2008 assembly election respectively have been conducted. It was found the poll result was almost same as the declared result of Tripurainfo.com. This year will be the 4Th such opinion poll survey and website authority hope the survey methodology adopted would give some idea regarding which political parties will win how many seats and which political formation will form the new government. This time conducting the poll and gauging the possible outcome has proved to be a little bit tricky because of preponderance of certain crucial factors such as the highly populist manifesto released by Congress and its endorsement by Rahul Gandhi and union finance minister P. Chidambaram towards the end of the campaign and the possible swing this might have brought about in votes of employees , TSR personnel and pensioners plus the natural anti-incumbency factors and respective organizational strengths of parties in the fray. However, keeping in view all the factors the survey was carried out as exhaustively as possible and have yielded the above findings.

While conducting the survey the respective strengths and weaknesses of the two rival political formations led by CPI (M) and Congress have been kept in view. Besides, we have attached due importance to the small factors also which prove decisive in Tripura’s small assembly constituencies.

Tripurainfo conducted an ‘online’ survey through its website, where 51 percent visitors voted for LF government and 44 percent voted for Congress allies government.

A total of 53 percent visitors expressed their opposition to give a chance of ruling the state to Congress allies and 47 percent showed their preparedness to accept the formation Congress led government.

In a question ‘Do you think LF will win again?’, 51 percent visitors voted for LF and 41 percent voted for Congress allies. Altogether 49 percent people responded for good performances of LF government and 44 percent votes were recorded against the performance.

To another question about Manik Sarkar’s performances, 76 percent visitors voted in favour of Sarkar’s performance through ‘excellent, good and average’ categories and 24 percent voted for poor performances of Sarkar’s government. Similarly, 42 percent voted for Manik Sarkar as chief minister and 26 percent visitors voted for Sudip Roy Barman as next chief minister of Tripura. Incumbent Finance Minister Badal Choudhury get 13 percent votes of visitors as next chief minister and 8 percent vote in favour of opposition leader Ratanlal Nath as next chief minister of Tripura.

The online survey also showed that about 31 percent visitors feel that government failed in health sector and 15 percent said the failure was more in law and order, 18 percent said government failed in education, 15 percent feel that government also failed social welfare, while 21 percent voted in the ‘none of them’ category.

Preparations final for counting, says Chief Electoral Officer

Agartala, Feb 23, 2013 : Preparations for counting of votes of the 11th state legislative assembly election on February 28 is complete, Chief Electoral Officer Ashutosh JIndal said on Saturday. Speaking to reporters at the civil secretariat here this evening, the official informed that discussions have been done with all Returning Officers over latest guidelines of the Election Commission of India. A marathon meeting with all Returning Officers was conducted earlier today.

Each counting centre of the state is scheduled to have around 12 counting tables in an average with one counting supervisor, one assistant counting supervisor, one counting observer and counting agents of different political parties. Sixty counting observers are scheduled to keep vigil on the entire counting process this year in the state. While thirty of them have already reached Tripura in the meanwhile, the rest are expected to arrive by February 26, the CEO said. Technical support from the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) is also expected to arrive soon for tackling any situation regarding the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) during counting.

Asked about security arrangement during counting of votes, the CEO stated that according to the regulations of the Election Commission, three-tier security perimeter would be set up around the counting centers. The exterior perimeter would extend upto 100 meters from the counting center. While the most interior perimeter is scheduled to be guarded exclusively by the Central Para-Military Force (CPMF) personnel, the rest two would be taken care of by the state police and Tripura State Rifles (TSR) jawans. All counting personnel including election officials would be granted access into the counting centers only after clearance in all three frisking stoppages. The entire stretch of international border with Bangladesh would be sealed one day ahead of the counting process as well. Border Security Forces (BSF) would be communicated about the issue shortly, Jindal added.

Counting in Tripura would involve implementation of ‘Genesis’ – a special software of the Election Commission which would enable election officials across the state to have minute-to-minute updates of counting process in all 60 counting centers. However, ceotripura.nic.in – the official website of Election Commission for Tripura assembly elections, would display party-wise advances in different assembly constituencies. Counting is scheduled to start from 8 AM in the morning on February 28. The fate of Tripura is expected to be clear within 1 PM.

Legal battle obstructs power distribution in Northeast

Agartala, Feb 23, 2013 : Electricity distribution to power-starved northeastern states by ONGC's first commercial project in Tripura has hit a legal hurdle, a top company official said here Saturday.

"Transmission of power from Palatana project to various northeastern states is a big problem," Sudhindra Kumar Dube, managing director, ONGC Tripura Power Company (OTPC), told reporters here.

OTPC was floated by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the Tripura government and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Service Limited (IL&FS) to set up the Rs.10,000-crore project.

State-owned ONGC's 726 MW gas-based power plant at Palatana, 60 km from here, has begun generating electricity from its first 363 MW unit since Oct 22. The second unit of 363 MW would start its operations by June this year.

"A 400KV high transmission power line (660 km) has been drawn up to Silchar in southern Assam from Palatana to connect with the Bongaigaon national grid in western Assam to distribute the electricity to various northeastern states.

To connect the transmission line with the national grid, sub-stations are being set up at Byrnihat on the Assam-Meghalaya border and others at Missa and Balipara in eastern Assam," Dube said.

He, however, added that to draw transmission lines between the sub-stations, after construction of a tower at Byrnihat, the land owner filed a case in the Gauhati High Court seeking huge compensation for his land used for setting up of the tower.

The high court Tuesday asked the Divisional Commissioner of Ri-Bhoi district in western Meghalaya to determine the compensation amount for the land.

Dube said that following the court order, a case was filed in the Supreme Court Friday seeking its intervention to settle the dispute. 

He said if the dispute is not resolved at the earliest, the necessary full load testing and the 15-days mandatory trial operation of the power project would not be completed in time.

"We are ready to pay the compensation for the land, but we need early settlement of the dispute."

He said the development and operation of the transmission system at a cost of Rs.2,000 crore has been undertaken by the North East Transmission Company Limited, a joint venture of OTPC, the Power Grid Corporation of India and the beneficiary states.

"We are ready to supply power from the first unit (363 MW) of the project. Now it would depend on the NERLDC (North Eastern Regional Load Despatch Centre) to distribute power among the northeastern states," Dube said.

The official said that getting forest clearance from the union forest and environment ministry to set up the power sub-stations and towers of transmission lines in Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya was also a cumbersome task.

The Palatana project is a hallmark of cooperation between India and Bangladesh, which ensured smooth passage of heavy project equipment and turbines to Palatana through its territory by road and waterways from Haldia port in West Bengal.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone of the power project in October 2005.

Factual reports on complaints of post-poll violence to be submitted from Saturday

Agartala, Feb 23, 2013 : Factual reports of enquiries into allegations of post-poll violence in different parts of the state would be submitted to the state election department starting from Saturday, Chief Electoral Officer Ashutosh Jindal said on Friday. Several complaints of post-poll violence were filed by political parties in different parts of the state including Karbuk, Khayerpur, Bishalgarh, Mandwi etc. The allegatiosn include the murder of one Kharendra Reang at Karbuk area few days back. Kharendra was killed by few black masked assailants while he was enjoying his share of booze at the household of one of his neighbours. The assailants also robbed him of Rs. 25,000 - money derived from sale of a swine on the fateful evening. Congress alleged the incident to be a political murder, deliberately carried out by ruling party cadres. The election department had asked concerned police officials to submit factual report on the issue.

BSF DG ready to start more BOPs in Tripura frontier, land creates prob

Agartala, Feb 22, 2013 : Subhash Joshi, Director General of the Border Security Forces, said that BSF is ready to start operation of three more Border Out Posts (BOP) in the Tripura frontier along Indo-Bangla international border. He met Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and Chief Secretary Dr. Sanjay Kumar Panda among several other officials at the civil secretariat today. While the meeting was reported to have involved a wide array of issues, official sources said the Director General of BSF has just paid a courtesy visit to Chief Minister Sarkar. Joshi took over as Director General of BSF on December 19, 2012, replacing Raman Srivastava, the previous chief of BSF.

Speaking to reporters after the conclusion of meeting with the Chief Minister and Chief Secretary, Joshi said that BSF is interested in increasing the number of BOPs operational in Tripura frontier of Indo-Bangla border. However, he said that problems related to land has been delaying the process. Plots of favourable land for setting up new BOPs are either under owned by farmers near the border or are under reserve forest area. The BSF top cop reportedly asked the state government to take up the issue with the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). The state government has been urging for increasing number of BOPs in Tripura frontier since long to strengthen border security measures and check cross-border crime.

A 1976 batch IPS officer of Uttarakhand cadre, Joshi has served as Director General of the elite commando force – National Security Guard (NSG). He also served as Special Director General of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Director General of Police of Uttarakhand and Deputy Director of the National Police Academy, Hyderabad among many other assignments. He was decorated with Police Medal for Meritorious Service and President’s Police Medal for distinguished service in 1994 and 2000.

BJP releases poll manifesto with 115 assurances

Agartala, Feb 04, 2013 : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its poll manifesto for the current assembly election on Monday. All India Vice President of the party – Muqtar Abbas Naqvi addressed the media at the manifesto release ceremony accompanied by BJP state president Sudhindra Dasgupta, party observer for Tripura assembly election – Suresh Pujari. Speaking to reporters, Naqvi said that with Congress involved in rampant corruption across the state and CPI (M) led Left Front running a parallel corruption in Tripura, BJP is the only choice for a corruption-free government in the state. The manifesto has offered a 115-point list of poll assurance including assurances of better pay for government employees, allowing central Dearness Allowance (DA) rate, initiation of fast track court for disposal of crime on women, stress on intelligence, strict steps to combat incidents of insurgency in the state, power, water and healthcare service for everybody etc. The party has staged candidates at 50 assembly constituencies in the current assembly elections. The state president has asked for cautious vote in the other 10 seats where the party couldn’t stage any candidates. BJP state president Dasgupta said that the public mandate would rise for BJP in the election. “We are hopeful of making entry in the state legislative assembly this season”, he stated. He also informed that BJP president Rajnath Singh is scheduled to visit the state on February 11 to campaign for the party.

Eight percent of Tripura candidates face criminal charges

Agartala, Feb 04, 2013 : In Tripura assembly elections-2013, out of the total 249 candidates, 19 candidates or 8 percent of total have criminal cases against them. In the 2008 assembly elections, only 3 percent of the contested candidates had declared criminal cases against themselves, said a report published on Monday.

Tripura Election Watch (TEW), state chapter of the National Election Watch (NEW), also noted that six percent (16) candidates are ‘crorepatis’ (people whose wealth exceeds Rs.1 crore) this time, against two percent (7) in 2008.

The report said, every major political party has given tickets to candidates who have declared criminal cases. Indian National Congress has 13 out of 48 (27 %), BJP has 1 out of 50 (2 %), CPI (M) has1 out of 55 (2 %), IPFT has 1 out of 17 (6 %), and Amra Bangalee has 1 out of 16 (6 %) candidates with declared criminal cases.

Out of the total19 candidates who have declared criminal cases, 10 have declared serious criminal cases like murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, etc. INC has 7such candidates, IPFT has 1 and Amra Bangalee has 1such candidate.

Among these 19 candidates with self declared criminal cases, charges have been framed against 12 candidates in various cases. They are RatanlalNath (INC), Gopal Chandra Roy (INC), Sujit Paul (IND), BirajitSinha(INC), BiswabandhuSen (INC), RajendraReang (IPFT), Rupesh Kumar Deb (AmraBengalee), Avijit Deb (INC), Advocate Bidyut Ghosh (BJP), Sajal Das (IND), Amitabha Datta (CPI(M)) and Baptu Chakraborty (INC).

The top three candidates from major parties who have declared maximum number of serious criminal cases of murder, kidnapping and theft against them areBirajit Sinha (Congress candidate from Kailasahar constituency) has declared one charge related to murder, Premtosh Nath of Congress from Sabroom constituency has declared one charge related to murder and opposition leader RatanlalNath( Congress contesting from Mohanpur constituency) has declared one charges related to attempt to murder.

One candidate has declared that he has cases registered against him under the “Prevention of Corruption Act”, Chandi Charan Tripura Congress candidate from Manu (ST) constituency.

A total of 94 (38%) candidates (out of 249 analyzed) are graduates or have higher degrees in the Tripura 2013 Assembly Elections.

A total of 15 candidates, out of all the 249 that have been analyzed, are of more than 65 years of age and only 15 (6%) women are contesting in the elections.

The top three candidates with highest declared assets are (in decreasing order) are Biplab Kumar Ghosh of Congress from Matabari constituency who has declared assets worth Rs. 9.29 crores, followed by Dilip Sarkar of Congress from Badharghat (SC) constituency with Rs. 4.58 crores worth of assets and PranajitSingha Roy of also from Congress from Radhakishorpur constituency with assets worth Rs. 4.03 crores.

A total of 66 candidates out of 249analyzed have declared assets less than Rs. 1 Lakh.

Babul Banik of SUCI(C) from Suryamaninagar constituency has declared that he has zero assets followed by Pranesh Das of Amraa Bangalee from Pabiachara (SC) with assets of only Rs 100 and Shibani Bhaumik of SUCI(C) from Town Bardowali with assets worth Rs 500.

A total of 17 candidates out of 249analyzed have declared liabilities of Rs. 10 lakhs or above.

The top three candidates with highest declared liabilities are (in decreasing order) are Satyaban Das, an Congress candidate from Pabiachara (SC) constituency has declared the highest liabilities worth Rs. 51.17 lakhs followed by Himani Debbarma of Congress (INC) from Charilam constituency with liabilities of Rs. 37.24 lakhs and Jitendra Chaudhuri a CPI (M) candidate from Manu (ST) constituency with liabilities of Rs. 28.24 lakhs.

In the party-wise Average Assets per candidate for Congress is Rs 98.07 lakhs, for BJP is 10.06 lakhs, for CPI (M) is 28.98 lakhs, and for IPFT is Rs 4.21 lakhs.

A total of 127 out of all 249 (51%) candidates contesting the Tripura 2013 Assembly Elections have not declared their PAN details.

Thirteen out of 48 candidates of Congress have not declared their PAN. Similarly, for CP I (M) 29 out of 55, for BJP 31 out of 50 of and for INPT 3 out of 12 have not declared PAN details.

According to the report, Biplab Kumar Ghosh of Congress from Matarbari constituency has declared the highest income worth Rs 40.77 lakh in his last income tax return. He is followed by Satyaban Das of Congress from Pabiachara constituency with declared income of Rs 38.24 lakh and Pranajit Singha Roy of Congress from Radhakishorpur constituency with total income worth Rs 30.38 lakh.

Report added that a total of 218 candidates (88%) out of the 249 candidates analyzed by the Tripura Election Watch have declared that they have never filed income tax returns.

Out of these 218 candidates who have never filed income tax returns, CPI(M) has the maximum number of candidates 51 (93 % of the 55 candidates analyzed) followed by BJP with 46 (92% of the 50 candidates analyzed) candidates.

Top 3 candidates with maximum assets but who have never filed IT returns are Dilip Sarkar of INC contesting from Badharghat (SC) constituency with total assets of Rs. 4.58crores. He is followed by Bilal Miah of INC from Boxanagar with assets of Rs. 3.06crores and Sujit Paul an independent from Town Bardowali with Rs. 1.82 crores respectively. 

104 re-contesting (candidates who fought elections in 2008 and now in 2013 are again in the fray) candidates have been analyzed for the Tripura Assembly Elections 2013.

The TEW, a platform of academics, journalists, social activities, intellectuals, NGOs and retired officials, published the 51-page report of the candidates' profile based on affidavits filed along with their nomination papers.