News Analysis India

Tag: TMC National General Secretary

  • 12 TMC activists arrested in Tripura for violating COVID norms

    By PTI

    AGARTALA: At least 12 leaders and workers of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), including those injured in an alleged attack by BJP workers on the previous day, were arrested in Tripura’s Khowai district on Sunday for “violating COVID norms”, police said.

    TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and the de facto number 2 in the party, reached Agartala and left for Khowai to meet the arrested party workers, who will be produced before a court amid tight security arrangements.

    Police said that the 12 TMC members were arrested for violating COVID restrictions by travelling after the imposition of night curfew at 7 pm.

    Tripura TMC spokesperson Ashish Lal Singh said that party leaders including himself, Debangshu Bhattacharya, Tania Poddar, Sudip Raha and Jaya Dutta have been arrested.

    Raha and Dutta had sustained injuries when their vehicle was allegedly attacked by BJP workers at Ambassa in Dhalai district on Saturday.

    “After the attack, we were returning to Agartala through National Highway 8 when the police stopped our vehicles at Khowai and took us into custody stating that there could be more attacks on us by ‘miscreants’.

    Indeed, BJP activists had gathered at several places on NH 8 to attack us,” Singh said.

    However, early in the morning, police said that the TMC members were arrested for violating COVID restrictions.

    Meanwhile, three senior TMC leaders, including Abhishek Banerjee, West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu and Rajya Sabha MP Dola Sen, reached Agartala and left for Khowai to meet the arrested members.

    Banerjee had earlier visited Tripura on August 2, when his convoy was also allegedly attacked by BJP workers.

    Strongly criticising Saturday’s attack, TMC leaders alleged that the incident proved that there “goonda raj” (lawlessness) in Tripura, and the BJP has sensed its defeat in the 2023 assembly elections in the state.

    Denying the involvement of its activists in the attack, the BJP claimed that the TMC is a non-factor in Tripura, and West Bengal’s ruling party is spreading the “virus of political violence” in the northeastern state, where “outsiders” are fomenting trouble.

    Shortly after the incident, BJP and TMC supporters had faced off and staged road blockades 500 m apart on NH 8, forcing Chief Minister Biplab Deb to take a detour to return to Agartala after attending some programmes in Dharmanagar.

    TMC workers led by Subal Bhowmik, a former vice-president of Tripura BJP who recently switched sides, were protesting the alleged ransacking of a TMC party office by saffron party workers in Batarasi area of Dharmanagar on Friday night.

    The West Bengal CPI(M) has also criticised the attack, but also took a dig at the TMC alleging that it had kept mum when Left workers were earlier attacked in BJP-ruled Tripura.

    PTI JOY ACD ACD 08081323 NNNN

  • TMC no 2 Abhishek Banerjee to visit Tripura Monday, hold meeting with party members

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: As part of the outreach campaign in BJP-ruled Tripura, TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee will on Monday visit the north-eastern state, where the party claims it has a sizeable support base.

    The visit of Banerjee, nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and defacto number two in the party, comes day after a controversy had erupted over “detention” of poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC team in an Agartala hotel room by the police, citing COVID-19 restrictions.

    The incident prompted back-to-back visits to Tripura by TMC leaders, including West Bengal ministers Bratya Basu and Malay Ghatak and TMC MP Derek O’Brien, who decried the “illegal detention of young boys and girls” of a professional firm.

    Banerjee will offer prayers at the Tripureswari temple in Agartala during the day, hold a meeting with party members and address the media in the afternoon, sources in the TMC said.

    Elections in the northeastern state are slated to be held in 2023.

    Deputy leader of TMC in Rajya Sabha, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, told PTI, “Abhishek will lead the party’s journey in Tripura where Bengalis and other communities are rooting for us, our leader Mamata Banerjee.

    They are frustrated with the performance of the Biplab Deb-led BJP government.

    ” The “landslide victory of the TMC in West Bengal on the face of BJP blitzkrieg” has encouraged a majority of Bengali voters in Tripura to pledge their support for Mamata Banerjee, the parliamentarian said.

    “Abhishek Banerjee is immensely popular among Tripura electorate — youth and women in particular.

    He will chalk out the road map of our Tripura journey,” he added.

    Veteran TMC leader and Lok Sabha MP Sougata Roy claimed that “Abhishek’s visit will be the precursor to the storm that will be raised by our supremo Mamata Banerjee in Tripura in the near future”.

    Making light of the visit by TMC national general secretary, Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh pointed out that the Mamata Banerjee-led party has no base anywhere outside this state.

    “In the past, too, the TMC had made futile attempts to gain foothold in Tripura. They (TMC leaders) are still day dreaming people of Tripura, including Bengalis, stand solidly behind the BJP. The TMC should protect its flock in Bengal, where the BJP has increased its assembly tally to 77 from just three,” he added.