The rousing and resounding response to the ongoing poll campaign of the Left Front all over Tripura reflects the people’s choice this time. With no anti-Left Front poll campaign in sight anywhere in the state except a single Trinamul Congress rally in Agartala addressed by its supremo Mamata Banarjee, the public meetings and mammoth rallies being organised by the Left Front day after day. Accurately mirror the people’s deep hatred for the chameleon politicians and an indomitable determination see the Marxists win.

The widespread erosion among the ranks of the Congress, TUJS, TNV even in their traditional strongholds, set in motion during the run-up to the panchayat polls in the State in the month of July, has intensified all over the state following the polarisation of the BJP camp after a huge section of the Congress led by former chief minister Sudhir Ranjan Majumdar joined the Trinamul Congress. The exposure of the discredited and anti-people politicians is standing the Left Front campaign in good stead with left front activities are going from door to door with the call for participation in poll rallies and meetings. The extremist threats against joining Left Front rallies and meetings are thus falling flat and the battle between the patriotic and anti-national forces of the country. The inexorable is now snowballing of the left democratic forces in the state has therefore, kept any anti Left Front poll campaign from significantly rearing its head anywhere in the Tripura so far.

The central election rally of the Left Front was held in Agartala on September 19 with CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet as chief speaker who had been accorded a rousing welcome the previous day which a massive and impressive motor cycle rally by the youths of this capital town. Red flags, festoons, banners and decorative gateways set the proper ambience of the rally and for other similar rallies at sub-divisional level being organised all over the state. In sharp contrast to this radiance of the revolutionary red all over the state, some isolated Congress and Trinamul tricolours here and there indicate the pathetic position of the anti-Left Front parties in the run-up to the October polls. Non-arrival of funds from the headquarters and disenchantment of a sizeable section of activities have led to this state of affairs.

Everyday, chief minister and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Manik Sarkar has been addressing Left Front rallies and meetings all over the state. Other leaders fanning out to address the innumerable rallies and meetings are Left Front ministers Anil Sarkar, party state secretariat member, Aghore Debbarma central party organ editor Gautam Das, Tapan Chakraborty, state committee member Keshab Majumdar Niranjan Debbarma, Narayan Rupini, Jitendra Chowdhury, Sudhir Das, Subodh Das, Left Front convenor and party central committee member Baidyanath Majumdar Autonomous district council chairman and its chief executive member Mongsajai Mog and Ranjit Debbarma respectively and the two Left Front candidates Samar Chowdhury and Bajuban Reang. People attending listen to the leaders speeches absolutely unfazed by either the pouring rain of autumn or the piercing rays of the sun. Spirited marches for miles in several processions undaunted by the vagaries of the weather, some of the processions are assuming an extra upbeat mood with songs and drums of brass bands. The recent extremist abduction of 16 government employees from the BDO office of Manu, Dhalai district could not make any averse impact on the participation of all sections of people in Left Front rally held in the same area. Neither has the very recent extremist ambush on Assam Rifles Jawans in South Tripura claming five lives been able to make the slightest dent in the determination of the people to give through ballots a befitting reply to the unprincipled and unscrupulous anti-Left Front forces whose only campaign has been that of terror and slander and which rely solely on misinforming and misleading the people.

On September 20: thousands of people thronged the Astabal Maidan to participate in the central election rally of the Left Front, ending the second phase of the state-wide campaign for the October 3 parliamentary polls. From hills and plains, from town and villages, of the Sadar, Bishalgarh, Sonamura and Khowai sub-divisions of West Tripura and Udaipur sub-division of South Tripura, thousands of people, tribal and non-tribal young and old, men and women filled the maidan before the rally began at 3 p.m. Quite a few thousands crammed the two roads adjoining the Maidan, unable to get into it, making both the Maidan and roads upto a great distance a site of the surging but sober rally. The public address system fitted far and wide by the organisers, and the discipline of the rallyists made them listen to the leaders' speeches with rapt attention till the end of the programme. The rally was a mammoth protest of the working classes against the heinous move to erode their unity with the venom of separatism and savagery. The interminable stream of people joining the rally was a unique conglomeration of people ranging from tribal shifting cultivators, non-tribal plainland pesants, teagraden labourers, weavers, non-Bengalee porters to the lower middle class people teachers, clerks, lawyers and intellectuals of the towns and their outskirts. It was miniature unity in diversity exuding a spirited and spontaneous commitment to fight unitedly the future battle in defence of the harmony and integrity of the country as well as a peace and progress in the state.

Presided over by the state Left Front convernor Bidyanath Majumdar, the rally was addressed by the CPI (M) Polit Bureau member and chief minister Manik Sarkar, the party's two central committee members Baidyanath Majumdar and Aghore Deb Barma, CPI leader West Bengal minister Nandagopal Bhattacharya, RSP central committee member Abinash Dasgupta and Forwad Bloc state secretary Brajgopal Roy besides the chief speaker CPI (M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet.

Addressing the rally Surjeet underscored the historic crossroads the country had reached on the eve of the 13th parliamentary polls due to the people's direct experience of the decomposition of the Congress and the devastative and divisive moves of the BJP and its saffron brigade on the one hand, and the stability of the three Left Front state governments in the country by virtue of their pro-people policies and programmes. The best choice was now crystal clear before the countrymen -- a third force of Left Democratic secular unity, a force that alone can materialise the freedom fighters' dream of radically changing the country. The vested interests have, however, been leaving no stone unturned to create a polity in the country where either the BJP or the Congress will lap up the cream of power, relegating the multitude of the country's populace to the dregs of poverty and communal conflict. About the activities of the 16 month old BJP-led government at the Centre, Surjeet said that this government could prove neither its stability nor its strength, as none of the BJP's poll promises have been kept. It feels no scruple even to endanger the integrity of the county for the sake of teaching the Left Front State governments a lesson by withholding forces and funds. On the contrary, the Left Front government in Tripura has been foiling the persistent conspiracies to trigger fratricidal feuds in the state, and in West Bengal, the Left Front has been running the government for long 22 years. That is why, Surjeet said, the BJP is now banking solely on deceit, doublespeak and diversionary tactics regarding its role in freedom movement, Kargil crisis, the break-up of the ruling front itself, and its own secret agenda. Lauding the tradition of Tripura of always voting for a positive change, Surjeet urged the people of Tripura to reflect this in the October 3 polls so as to bolster the countrywide movement to foil the conspiracy to debilitate and divide the nation.

Addressing the rally, Manik Sarkar lashed out at the Congress regime of forty-five years that had never addressed itself to the task of eliminating poverty and unemployment that had now assumed an alarming proportion. He lashed out at the BJP-led regime of 16 months wherein the minorities had been undergoing an all-out attack, with 646 incidents of communal riots recorded in the country during the last 16 months. Instead of addressing the burning problems of the masses the BJP had only outdone the Congress in communalising, criminalising and commercialising the polity he mentioned. He also lashed out at the newly established Trinamul Congress in the state which was allowing the BJP in Tripura. He made a fervent call to the people to massively widen the margin of the Left Front victory in Tripura to contribute their mite towards formation of an alternative force like United Front at the Centre that will do away with the deprivation of the North East, along with protecting the integrity and sovereignty of the country.