Pradyot fires fresh salvo, spews bile against Bengali media and infiltration, vows to fight together with the opposition

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, May 24, 2023

The ‘Tipra Motha’ chief Pradyot Kishore has yet again resorted to his usual bluster and rhetoric over the Centre’s failure to send the appointed ‘interlocutor’ , vowing not to speak to the interlocutor himself but to send his representatives for discussion as and when the elusive ‘interlocutor’ arrives, if at all. Cut to the quick by the alleged decision in the BJP’s ‘Karyakarini Baithak’ in Charilam not to call him ‘Maharaja’ or ‘Bubagra’ and rather address him as ‘Pradyot’ the ‘Motha’ supremo described as ‘not fair’ the attitude of the state government towards him. His antipathy towards the majority people in the state was also expressed in his comment that “have no complaint against the New Delhi leaders of Congress, BJP or even CPI (M) the problem creators are the leaders of Tripura who only in recent times had migrated from Bangladesh’-a venomous reference to the majority Bengali population which also betrays his stark ignorance of history that makes him think that all Bengalis of the state are newcomers to Tripura.

In a lengthy and bombastic social media post yesterday Pradyot conceded that a section of leaders of his party want to join the BJP but deplored the propaganda against him saying he had to sell off a flat in Calcutta and collect small contributions from people to fight the elections. He charged that a section of politicians and media have been trying to malign him among the indigenous people of the state.

But in his long post Pradyot vented his ire against the state’s media with unconcealed zeal urging those who love ‘Bubagra’ should organise protests when the media ,especially the Bengali media at Agartala carry out propaganda against Bubagra with all false allegations as they have been doing over the past many months. Pradyot also reasserted his demand for his fictitious ‘Greater Tipraland’ and said “there is solution for the Greater Tipraland demand and within the constitution ,so this demand will continue”.

Significantly, Pradyot indicated a joint anti-BJP front for both the upcoming by-election to Dhanpur assembly constituency and Loksabha election to the East Tripura constituency. He conceded that he had made mistakes in the assembly election (by dividing opposition votes) but said that other parties also made mistakes to make up his tactless move , possibly at the behest of BJP. He called upon Manik Sarkar to keep silent (on himself) as he had failed to play proper role as leader of the opposition . He urged upon the opposition to unite and prepare for the upcoming elections to Dhanpur by-poll and Loksabha polls. But he also made a significant observation that “political parties have to learn one thing that if a person is being continuously pushed then a time will come when there is no place left behind , he will have no choice but to fire back”. An ominous indication that he may resort to negative politics like making ethnic polarization and sponsoring possible violent outfits for creating trouble in state politics. This may well turn out to be a blank fire but the sinister design remains and must be reckoned with.