Rift within the coalition government in Tripura came to fore with the IPFT deciding to contest in two Lok Sabha seats alone in 2019. The party on Monday welcomed government’s announcement to hand over murder case of journalist Shantanu Bhowmik to CBI but alleged BJP has already decided the names for Lok Sabha seats and ignored its coalition partner.
Tripura has two parliamentary constituencies – West Tripura and East Tripura. East Tripura constituency is reserved for ST candidate.
The BJP-led coalition partner’s announcement came in the wake of Tripura government’s decision to hand over journalist Shantanu Bhowmik’s murder case to CBI. Allegations of some IPFT members’ involvement are doing the round ever since Bhowmik was murdered.
Addressing media, IPFT assistant general secretary Mangal Debbarma said the party welcomes investigation by CBI on the murder case of journalist Shantanu Bhowmik but there are grapevine that a few party leaders are associated with that incident. “IPFT vehemently opposes such grapevine and firmly expresses confident on the inquiries by CBI to unearth the truth………….IPFT has reasons to believe that some conspiracy being hatched out by some elements to harass IPFT targeting for furtherance of the interest of such elements.”
The IPFT leadership criticized the BJP for not initiating its pre-poll promises including setting up High Level Modality Committee.