Tripura CLP leader quits protesting Congress-Left tie-up in Bengal

Agartala: Tripura's Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Sudip Roy Barman on Thursday resigned from his post protesting his party's electoral alliance with the Left Front in the West Bengal assembly elections.

"I have sent my resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and also to Tripura assembly Speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath," Barman told reporters after the conclusion of the budget session of the assembly on Thursday.

Barman, son of former Tripura chief minister and Congress leader Samir Ranjan Barman, said in his letter to Gandhi: "I am extremely shocked and depressed to find that there has been a dramatic and drastic change in our party's policy.

"I completely failed to understand the reason for the tie-up with the Left parties in the West Bengal assembly polls."

"In spite of your (Sonia Gandhi) understanding of the CPI-M's unpredictable character, its treacherous role in the past, anti-national thinking and activities and the immense barbaric atrocities upon Congressmen in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala, you have given nod to this so called alliance/seat adjustments," he wrote.

The Congress leader said the party's alliance with the Left Front in the Bengal elections would have a far reaching political impact at the national level.

About speculation on his leaving the Congress and joining another party, Barman told the media: "At the moment, I have not taken any such decision."

Barman had earlier sent a note to Sonia Gandhi in February arguing against the alliance with the Left Front in West Bengal, saying it will prove "harmful" to the Congress.

Meanwhile, Tripura Congress president Birajit Sinha and some others party leaders said they would abide by the decision of the central leaders about the alliance with the Left parties led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

"We will abide by the decision of the central leadership taken over the issue," Sinha said.

Tripura's main opposition Congress has 10 members in the 60-member assembly.