Senior Trinamool leaders visited Tripura and raised slogans. (Representational)
The Trinamool Congress is back with its slogan "khela hobe" (game on) but this time for Tripura, where the assembly elections are due in 2023.
In Tripura's Agartala, senior Trinamool leaders raised slogans and urged the leaders of the CPI(M) to join the Mamata Banerjee-led party, criticising them for not being able to become a strong opposition force against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the state.
"If the Left leaders can't handle the situation in Tripura, they should send their supporters to the Trinamool camp and I assure them Mamata Banerjee's party will take care of everyone," West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu said.
The Trinamool had made a similar call in West Bengal in 2011 when it ousted the Left from power in state elections, ending their 34-year-long rule, after which several Left leaders switched the party.
A similar blow was handed to the Left by a BJP-led coalition in Tripura after it ended a 25-year-long Left rule in the previous state elections in 2018.
"We have seen that the Left over the past three years of BJP rule has failed to make its presence felt as opposition in the state. I would like to urge the party leaders not to be a part of repetition of the historic blunder the Left did in Bengal," Mr Basu said.
Criticising the BJP in Tripura, Mr Basu said the people of the state want a change. "The BJP has miserably failed to live up to the hopes and aspirations of Tripura people. We have witnessed how people of Tripura are seeking shelter."
The Trinamool party, encouraged by its landslide victory in the Bengal assembly elections this year where it successfully dismantled BJP's incursion, has now set eyes on the two BJP-ruled states in the Northeast -- Assam and Tripura.
This was the second visit by Mr Basu to Tripura. During the first visit on August 8, the party had alleged that some of its members had been injured after being attacked by members of Tripura's ruling BJP. A case was also registered against Mr Basu, his party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, MP Dola Sen and three others.
The Trinamool had also alleged that a team from poll strategist Prashant Kishor's IPAC (Indian Political Action Committee) was allegedly stopped from leaving their hotel in Agartala in July.
Meanwhile, sources in the BJP, which had witnessed a sign of dissidence last year due to Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb's leadership, said the Trinamool's incursions in the state have reawakened undercurrents within the party, provided its history in Tripura.
Ahead of the 2013 Tripura elections, several leaders, including Congress legislators such as former Sudip Roy Barman, had joined the Trinamool party inspired by its victory in West Bengal. However, Mr Barman, son of former chief minister and Congress leader Samir Ranjan Barman, led seven MLAs to join the BJP in June 2017 from the Trinamool, along with other party leaders and workers.