The Tripura Congress president has posted a video on Twitter seeking crowd-funding to treat party workers and other people who became victims of post-election violence, prompting questions on the state of the party's coffers.
In the video that is on the Congress Twitter handle, Pradyot Deb Barman said he had donated Rs 10 lakh as the state party head.
This website asked Barman why the Congress chose crowdfunding to help the general public and party workers affected in the violence. Is it so short on funds?
“The party is already helping us out,' Barman, who is from the Tripura royal family, said. 'It is a transparent system. We want to help out people, not just (party) workers.”
He said: “Party workers doesn’t mean office bearers. I’m not raising money for party workers who voted for us and got beaten up for that.”
Others said that mainstream Indian media was ignoring the violence in Tripura.
The Tripura Congress' appeal has come when it is widely known that the BJP was the overwhelming beneficiary of electoral bonds, an instrument by which an individual or an entity can donate anonymously to a political party. Several news outlets have carried reports on how the BJP grew its electoral fund through this method, while the Congress remained a distant second.
Barman said the state unit had so far got Rs 11 lakh to assist those who had fallen victim to the violence. The Congress and the CPM have blamed the BJP.
“Violence in Tripura is not just post-poll. Even the Election Commission had to defer elections and there was repolling in 168 booths,' Barman said today. 'There is a complete failure of law and order. Even new BJP members are saying that they are being attacked,” he said. According to news reports from Agartala, three people were killed and more than 100 were injured in violence that broke out after the results on May 23.
Local publications reported about an incident where a newly converted BJP supporter, 30-year-old Mithun Bhowmik, was hacked to death when he protested abuses being hurled at a woman supporter of the CPM.
Barman's appeal got mixed results. There was derision from some.
