SFI wins Tripura college council election, ABVP opens account

Agartala, Sep 13: Large scale violence was reported in different degree colleges of North and West Tripura last evening after BJP’s student wing ABVP first time in the history of Tripura won as many as 27 seats in student council election. However, none of the council was captured by ABVP. As many as 14 general degree colleges of 22 was cent percent won by CPI(M)’s student wing SFI and there is no representation of any other oppositions. The SFI had earlier won 528 seats of 778 in nine colleges without any contest. The election was held for only 249 seats in 13 colleges where SFI won 222 and ABVP won 26 seats. The victory of SFI was not satisfactory for CPI(M), as ABVP had snatched away about 11 percent seats went for polling yesterday. Allegedly, immediately after announcement of ABVP’s victory in some seats in MBB College and BBM College of Agartala, SFI supporters accompanied by CPI(M) youth wing DYFI and motor workers’ union CITU activities attacked on ABVP supporters and police personnel. “The SFI workers pelted stones and empty bottles of liquor from top floors of the college buildings and nearby houses that left at least nine police men including DIG Southern Range Arindam Nath and SP (West) Abhijit Saptarshi and six ABVP supporters were injured,” police said here today. To manage the situation police charged baton on the attackers that left at least 12 SFI supporters injured. Later, BJP MLA Sudip Roy Barman and other leaders rescued several other ABVP supporters from different houses who had taken shelter to save them from violence. The similar sorts of violence were also reported from Kailashahar, Dharmanagar, Kanchanpur, Fatikroy and Bishalgarh colleges where ABVP won some seats in the council and most of the cases SFI won by a narrow margin. However, police said investigation on the violence has begun as per law. All the injured were shifted to hospital and undergoing treatment. Meanwhile, DYFI state secretary Amal Chakraborty accused ABVP of attacking SFI and TSU boys and girls near MBB College campus with the help of outsiders and hooligans and said, “We don’t understand what were the role of anti socials in the colleges? We have repeatedly sought attention of ABVP leaders to refrain from gathering them in the college complex to no avail.” He also expressed annoyance over role of police and alleged police has charged lathi on SFI. Meanwhile, BJP MLA Roy Barman alleged that the outsiders who resorted violence in Agartala colleges were led by DYFI Secretary Amal Chakraborty and in other places also CPI-M cadres mobilised listed criminals to attack ABVP. “Police was played a partisan role to safeguard SFI but when they realised CPI(M) cadres are not sparing them then they went for action. The violence could have not been reached to that scale if police launched action initially. The CPI(M) leaders abused and beaten up girls and women of BJP in presence of police but they were mum,” Mr Roy Barman alleged. UNI