Agartala: Former West Bengal minister Rajib Banerjee and Tripura BJP MLA Ashis Das joined the Trinamool Congress in Tripura today, at a rally being held by Abhishek Banerjee. The court allowed the rally after it was blocked thrice earlier by the state.
Sources indicated that the choice of Agartala for Rajib Banerjee’s return to is a deliberate move to signal to the BJP that no bastion of the party is safe from Trinamool assault — Goa or Tripura. Mamata Banerjee has just returned from Goa, where polls are due next year. Tripura goes to polls in 2023.
“We will finish the Left and right both in Tripura. It will be a repeat of Bengal,” said Abhishek Banerjee — Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and the general secretary of the party.
“The BJP virus has only one vaccine. Its name is Mamata Banerjee… the people of Tripura will have to give double dose — the first in the civic polls and the second in 2023 assembly polls,” he said, adding that the party will contest in all seats of civic polls in Tripura next month.
Post noon, the rally site in Agartala was vandalized by unknown people. Flags and posters of the party were pulled down and torn.
The Trinamool Congress has been planning to hold the rally since September. When the state police blocked it again yesterday for the fourth time citing Covid, the party went to court.
Late last evening, the Tripura High Court gave permission for the rally. Justice Subhashish Talapatra, however, said more than 500 people cannot be allowed at a time at the venue.
The Trinamool has also accused the Biplab Deb-led government of trying to create hurdles. “The BJP is scared of Abhishek,” senior Trinamool leader Partha Chatterjee had said.
Rajib Banerjee — a minister in Mamata Banerjee’s government in 2011 and 2016 — quit in January. He is now part of the reverse migration that started after Trinamool’s stupendous victory over the BJP’s mammoth election machinery.
After the victory, Mamata Banerjee had been open to the idea of homecoming, saying she would consider the cases.
The former minister, who unsuccessfully contested the state elections on a BJP ticket from Domjur, had started talks for his return to Trinamool in June, admitting to reservations about the BJP’s “principles”.
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