TMC to free Tripura from Left's misrule in 2018 Assembly polls: Mukul Roy

Trinamool Congress (TMC) vice-president Mukul Roy said that the party will defeat the ruling Left Front in the state in the upcoming 2018 Assembly polls and form a government there.

"I have come on a personal visit as well as our leader Mamata Banerjee is serious about Tripura and in the coming assembly election (to be held in early 2018), we want to gift the people of Tripura freedom from the misrule (of Left Front). So naturally today my Tripura visit again proves the seriousness on my leader about Tripura which she expressed in her press conference and keep in mind the election," said Roy.

He was accompanied by local TMC leader and rebel suspended Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman who recently resigned from the CLP post in protest against the Congress-CPIM alliance in West Bengal.

According to the TMC vice president despite more than two decades Left rule in Tripura the state has not developed in any sector.

Roy said, "Last twenty years Manik Babu is in power and for 23 year this is a Left ruled state but till today the state has not changed. The tribal sections of people here are deprived of the opportunities and similar is the condition of the schedule cast section and they also do not get any scope for development. Be it students, youths or women; in all section the Tripura government has failed."

He further said that the government here has failed even in the education, agriculture and in the health sector.

"They speak against other states but their own state is top in women atrocity. So we are here to aware the public against all these and now I am on a short visit," he added.

He said that during his visit to the state he had met leaders of various anti-Left political parties including Congress MLAs and is trying to bring all of them under one platform to fight against the misrule and pull down Left Front from power in Tripura.

"We met all the MLAs in the city and Sudip (Roy Barman) who is from the National Congress and for a very long period fighting against the CPIM. I came to know that he resigned from the CLP post in protest against the anti-ideal alliance between the CPIM and Congress. Hence we welcomed him ...very soon you will see that TMC playing a big inside and outside the Tripura assembly," he said while adding that now Mamata Banarjee's target is Tripura and she is very serious on it.

Roy, as a representative of the TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, was in Agartala on Friday morning on a short visit and held several meeting with seven Congress legislators led by suspended leader Sudip Roy Barman.

He also held meetings with few top leaders of the tribal-based Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura and Indigenous People's Front of Tripura.

Roy along with Barman is trying to gain support of at least seven MLAs to evade the clasp of the anti-defection law as the Congress's strength in the Assembly stands at 10.

Although Roy and the rebel Congress MLAs were tightlipped over the entire issue, but it seemed that the TMC is short of one MLA to for the opposition party in the Marxist-ruled state Tripura. (ANI)