Veteran CPI(M) politburo member and former Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has said that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi can speculate on the number of seats his party or the NDA would get in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, "we cannot do this but the INDIA bloc's victory is certain".

Manik Sarkar, who was the Chief Minister of Tripura for 20 years (1998-2018), said that the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM) and other Left parties are with the masses, and they have always been highlighting the causes of youths, women, farmers, working-class people, tribals, scheduled castes, and Dalits. The veteran Left leader criticised the BJP-led Central government at the Centre over several issues including price rise and unemployment.

"Price rise, unemployment, economic crisis etc., are at their peak," Manik Sarkar said. He said that the BJP was gradually getting isolated from the people and "that is why, they have become more aggressive and vindictive against the opposition parties and their leaders".

Manik Sarkar termed unemployment, price rise, inflation, "dangerous" education and economic policies, "non-democratic and vindictive governance" as the biggest challenges of the country, and questioned the silence of the Central government on these issues.

The 75-year-old Left leader said that the BJP would have lost the 2023 assembly elections in Tripura had the tribal people were not "fooled" by the Tipra Motha, headed by Pradyot Kishore Debbarma. He said the BJP's vote share in Tripura came down from around 44 per cent in 2018 to 39 percent in 2023 which showed the party "has lost the people's faith". Claiming that the then opposition party Tipra-Motha "rescued the BJP from losing the election", and also helped the BJP "a lot to form the government", Manik Sarkar said that the CPI(M) managed to get back its lost votes in last year's Assembly elections.

"The Motha played a spoilsport for the Left and Congress parties, causing a division in the anti-BJP tribal votes tremendously helped the BJP. Had the Motha not duped the tribals, the result would have been just the reverse," he said.

Criticising the anti-Left tribal-based parties, the former Chief Minister said that since 1967, these parties sometimes demanded pushback of foreigners from Tripura, then demanded sovereign Tripura, then separate tribal state, then demanded "Greater Tipra Land", and all these demands are aimed against the unity and integrity of Tripura. "The anti-Left parties instigated the division of tribal and non-tribals while the Left parties for the past over seven decades struggled to maintain the tribal and non-tribal unity in Tripura. Since the Princely rule, there has been no real development of tribals. Development in both tribal and non-tribal areas and socio-economic welfare of all communities started after the Left government first came to power in Tripura in 1978," the former Tripura Chief Minister said.

He further said that the BJP and the Tipra-Motha have been making false and fabricated allegations against the erstwhile Left Front governments "that nothing had been done in the interests of the tribals". "The Motha cheated the tribals. It raised the demands of protecting the Constitutional rights of the tribals. The party exposed itself before the people. Earlier, the party agitated and said it was against the BJP... now it joined the BJP government and jointly contesting the Lok Sabha elections," he said.

Tribals constitute one-third of Tripura's over four million population. Out of 60 Assembly seats, 20 are reserved for the tribals. The tribal voters have played a vital role in the electoral politics since the erstwhile Princely-ruled state merged with the Indian Union in October 1949.

Meanwhile, alleging that a "jungle raj has been going on", Manik Sarkar claimed that since the BJP came to power in Tripura in 2018, no "proper election" was held in the state, be it assembly polls or local body polls.

The veteran Left leader also said: "If the Election Commission ensures free and fair conduct of the elections, and if the people are allowed to exercise their franchise freely on April 19 and April 26, the victory of two INDIA bloc candidates is certain." He also claimed that the people are against the BJP and its governance. Regarding Chief Minister Manik Saha's announcement on reopening murder cases allegedly perpetrated during the Left and Congress regimes, Sarkar said that the previous Left governments did not commit any crime or mistake.

"On the other hand, there are many killings that were done during the 6-year rule of the BJP government. The CPI-M will remain with the masses, would struggle for them, would raise the voices of the common people and with these strategies, the party would regain its bases to return to power. There are no other shortcut ways," the former Chief Minister maintained. Polling for the Tripura West Parliamentary seat will be held on April 19 in the first of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections, while the Tripura East (ST) constituency will go to the polls in the second phase on April 26.

The by-election to the Ramnagar Assembly seat will also be held on April 19. The seat felt vacant after the demise of sitting BJP MLA Surajit Datta on December 28 last year. In all, 18 candidates, including two women, are contesting the two Lok Sabha seats while two candidates, one each from the BJP and the CPI(M), are trying their electoral fortunes in the Ramnagar Assembly by-poll. In the Lok Sabha poll for the two seats, the main contest is expected to be between the BJP and the INDIA bloc, comprising the Congress, CPI(M), and six other parties.

**With Agency Inputs.