New Delhi: Confirming speculation, Pradyot Manikya Debbarma, the Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president, has resigned from the party’s primary membership. Debbarma’s resignation from his post on September 17 was not accepted by the central leadership, leading to him resigning from the primary membership of the party itself on Tuesday.
Debbarma shot off a long letter to Luizinho Falerio, the AICC general secretary in charge of the Northeast, announcing his resignation. In the letter, which has been accessed by The Wire, he says that he is quitting due to differences with a national general secretary picked by the top leadership in New Delhi to be in charge of the region. Debbarma also claims that Falerio has been hobnobbing with the BJP.
Debbarma laying the blame for his resignation at the feet of the general secretary is the latest example of a trend spotted across the region for some years now. Party leaders in the northeastern states have often blamed central observers and AICC general secretaries in charge of the region, such as C.P. Joshi and V. Narayanswamy, for being “directly responsible” for inner-party squabbles and weakening of state units. They have also been accused of creating a barrier between the top leadership and the state unit leaders, forcing promising leaders to shift to other parties, including the BJP.
One often-cited example is that of an aggrieved Kalikho Pul of Arunachal Pradesh, who went on to help the BJP form a state government with Congress MLAs. A former Congress chief minister of a northeastern state, on condition of anonymity, told The Wire on Tuesday that Himanta Biswa Sarma – whom he described as the BJP’s King Midas in the northeast, “is also an example of such highhandedness administered from New Delhi”.
‘Incompetent general secretaries’
Debbarma’s letter to Falerio also highlighted the point, “The AICC has also destroyed the Northeast region with one incompetent general secretary after another. If we in the Northeast thought Shri C P Joshi was the reason we lost state after state, you will be known as the person who destroyed the essence of the Congress in the northeast.”
Debbarma has recently shown that he is a leader with promise and can deliver results to the grand old party at a difficult time. The scion of the Tripura royal family was elevated to the post of working PCC president in February, after an abysmal show in the 2018 Tripura assembly elections. The Congress was the biggest loser in the elections, which dislodged the 25-year-old Left Front government and ceded a huge chunk of voters to the BJP.
However, in the general elections, the party’s vote share, under Debbarma’s leadership, shot up from 1.8% (in the 2018 assembly polls) to 27%. This forced the BJP to look at the Congress as its main opposition, not the Left Front.
Also Read: BJP Opens Lok Sabha Account in Tripura; Congress Regains Stature
He was also successful in bringing back several veteran Congressman of the state who belong to the majority Bengali Hindu community. These leaders had left the party after being sidelined over the years. Debbarma also invigorated the party’s roots in the tribal belt, also by dint of being the Maharaja of the erstwhile Tippera royal state.
However, differences between Falerio and Debbarma have been brewing for some time. Some state unit leaders had indicated to this correspondent a while ago that the discontent was mainly because the PCC chief did not have the independence to build the party as a fighting force against the BJP.
Pradyot Manikya Debbarma (in blue kurta) and other top Congress leaders from the northeast met party president Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh on September 13 Photo: Twitter
Significantly, in his letter, Debbarma not only accused Falerio of mismanaging funds meant for assembly elections in Sikkim, but also attempting to dislodge “unceremoniously” top leadership of different state units in the northeast. He also accused the in-charge of general ignorance about the region, hobnobbing with the ruling BJP in Tripura and seemingly acting in consultation with some leaders from the opposition party.
He wrote:
“Perhaps the biggest error on my part was my silent acquiescence to your instructions of consulting with members of the BJP (from Tripura), who till date continue to be MLAs in the saffron party. It was deeply worrying that a national general secretary of the Congress party was openly interacting with members of the BJP and taking instructions from them on how to conduct day to day affairs of the state unit. My silence was a mistake and I regret not having paid heed to my conscience, though I am firmly doing so now.”
Debbarma claimed that Falerio tried to “pressurise” him “on various occasions” to appoint those who recently defected from the state BJP unit, including some who “are still members of the BJP into the new PCC committee which I was empowered to form.”
Accusing Falerio of “arm-twisting” him to give the newly-inducted BJP members top Congress positions, Debbarma wrote, “As a result of my resistance, which I believed was for the betterment of my party, I faced a constant onslaught of humiliation and insults, which you are surely aware of as this treatment was handed down by you and those in your office.”
In the recent Sikkim assembly elections, Debbarma, who was part of Falerio’s team, claimed that the state PCC president Bharat Bassnet “pleaded” with Falerio for more funds as “almost 60 per cent of his allocated funds were never given to him.”
He said:
“Yet you ignored him. The person who was handling funds was appointed to simply be a front for you, according to many in the party. This matter too has been reported in writing to the Congress president. Despite my repeated pleas, you overlooked the mismanagement of funds and this deep rooted corruption is one of the main reasons why the Grand Old Party is stagnating in the Northeast.”
He also accused Falerio of “repeated attempts to dislodge many leaders from the northeast”, including former Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma from the post of the state CLP leader. He said that former Manipur PCC president T.N. Haokip was “not even informed about his removal when he was protesting at Jantar Mantar against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill just days before the Lok Sabha elections.”
“The same happened when you replaced Birajit Sinha and appointed me (as the PCC chief). Birajit Sinha, a senior leader who was travelling with a delegation to meet Rahul Gandhi for the NECC (North East Coordination Committee) meet at Guwahati, unceremoniously received the news through an SMS late in the night.”
“The fact also remains that despite being appointed as general secretary in charge of Tripura over a year ago, you have not visited the state even once,” he added.
Luizinho Falerio. Photo: Facebook
Barman’s stance on NRC also a factor?
However, Congress sources in New Delhi has told The Wire that a key reason behind Debbarma’s exit was also Falerio’s opposition to Barman’s petition in the Supreme Court seeking a National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Tripura, which he had filed in October 2018.
The state, which shares a border with Bangladesh, is considered to have one of the highest numbers of undocumented immigrants. Due to Partition and the Bangladesh War, the indigenous Tripuri tribal population became a minority in the state, triggering a movement for a separate tribal state and a bout of insurgency. The local ally of the ruling BJP, Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), has been at the forefront of the demand for a tribal state to be sliced out of Tripura.
Local political observers say that by having filed a petition in the SC seeking an NRC for Tripura, Debbarma added “an extra challenge” to the state BJP. An Agartala-based senior political reporter said that while the BJP has been demanding an NRC across the country, the strategy would not be convenient for the BJP in Tripura. “A majority of the population have roots in what is today’s Bangladesh, including chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb’s family. It is not a convenient tool for the party in the state. In such a scenario, Debbarma’s petition certainly became a cause for worry for the local BJP unit. It could have also put the CM on the back foot,” the reporter said.
Also Read: Tripura BJP Is Following Mamata Banerjee’s Lead on How Not to Hold Panchayat Polls
Towards the end of August, Debbarma met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and “spoke of corruption, greed, lust and step-motherly treatment of our states.” However, as per Barman’s letter, the Congress leadership was “slow” to act. He said Falerio gave him an “ultimatum” after his meeting with Sonia Gandhi, to choose between the NRC petition or resign as PCC president.
“Torn between loyalty to the party and duty to the people, I have chosen the latter,” he wrote.
In an AICC meeting presided by Sonia Gandhi on September 12, Debbarma startled many by saying that the party should concentrate on how to attract the country’s youth into its fold rather than just prepare for Gandhi Jayanti celebrations. A day later, he was also part of a meeting Gandhi had with top party leaders from the Northeast.
Debbarma, speaking at the recent AICC meeting, urged the top leadership to think how the country’s youth can be brought to the party fold. Photo: Twitter
Confirms pressure from Falerio
When contacted by The Wire, Debbarma confirmed that he was “pressurised” by Falerio to withdraw his NRC petition. “I am not against any community, but the issue of immigration is a concern for my community. At the recent AICC meeting attended by Sonia Gandhi, Ahmad Patel and Manmohan Singh, Falerio accused me of having angered 71% of the state’s population (Bengali Hindus of East Bengal/East Pakistan origin). I have huge respect from Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. But this is a man who has never visited the state and has accused me of something by gathering intelligence from his friends from other parties,” he said.
Also Read: Why Is BJP Changing Tack on NRC in Assam?
To a pointed question that whether he would – like many other Congress leaders – shift to the BJP’s camp, Debbarma categorically said, “It is out of the question. In the run-up to the assembly polls, I was offered the position of a minister or a Rajya Sabha seat by the BJP, I didn’t relent. The Congress’s top leadership is aware of it.”
Speculation is rife that Debbarma may also start a regional party. He didn’t rule it out but told The Wire, “Right now, I am happy being a free man, not worried who is trying to backstab me or the party from within. Who knows, I may quit politics forever and raise the issues that concern my people as a member of the royal family.”
Falerio could not be reached by The Wire to respond to the accusations made by Debbarma. His response, if and when received, will be added to this story.
