A seven-member fact-finding delegation of Left Front and Congress MPs visiting Tripura has alleged widespread post-poll violence by “BJP-RSS goons” and suggested it was orchestrated by “the man who runs the home ministry” in Delhi.

At a news conference on Saturday, the MPs alleged an attempted attack on some of them by “BJP goons” on Friday and said that “prima facie, law and order has collapsed” in Tripura, with the police doing nothing to stop the violence and instead booking the victims.

The delegation began a two-day visit to the state from Friday following reports of widespread violence since the March 2 declaration of results for the February 16 Assembly polls.

It split into three teams that visited violence-affected areas and spoke to victims. But the delegation cancelled Saturday’s programme after “a group of BJP goons tried to attack” one of the three teams at Nehalchandra Nagar, Sepahijala district, on Friday evening.

The delegation members met governor S.N. Arya on Saturday and submitted a threepage memorandum seeking the restoration of peace, removal of political hostility and the arrest of those involved in the “inhuman violence”, among others.

The seven visiting MPs — P.R. Natarajan, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Elamaram Kareem and A.A. Rahim of the CPM, Binoy Viswam of the CPI and Abdul Khaleque and R. Ranjan of the Congress — then addressed a news conference in Agartala. They said they would raise the Tripura violence in Parliament to try and draw national attention to it. “We can say that prima facie, law and order has collapsed,” CPM member Kareem said.

Viswam, CPI Rajya Sabha member from Kerala, suggested that the violence had been orchestrated from Delhi but stopped short of explicitly naming Union home minister Amit Shah.

“We believe that those in Delhi, the home ministry, the man who runs the home ministry… he himself is playing a role in making Tripura a place of violence and insecurity,” he said.

Viswam, who visited eight affected places with his team, said: “We never thought it was so fierce till we reached Tripura. People are really afraid to live in their homes. The BJP-RSS goons in a calculated manner (attacked) them.

“In all the places we went to… all of them or most of them (victims) were active cadres of the Left Front or the Congress party. With a vengeance they (attackers) jumped upon them and ransacked everything. Houses and shops were put to arson. Many people were cruelly tortured and manhandled.…”

The BJP-IPFT has retained power winning 33 of the 60 seats, with the Left and the Congress, who had a seat-sharing arrangement, tallying 14 seats and the debutant Tipra Motha bagging 13.

“The common man and woman in Tripura are afraid to live in their homes. We could see hundreds of them in many places…. This is the Tripura of today,” Viswam said.

“We want to ask the government of the BJP if this is the policy of the BJP. If this is the BJP’s concept of a welfare India. And we ask Mr (Narendra) Modi if this is the government which claims (to be) sabka saath (with everybody).… We could see that the government of Tripura and the Centre are not with the common men here, and the women here.

“We have seen so many of them losing everything. Houses are burnt, shops are lost, badly injured. We demand they should be compensated and there should be proper mechanism for their rehabilitation.”

Viswam said the Left and Congress MPs would try to raise the Tripura violence in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

“We are trying to take these facts for the consideration of the President of India.… We want these facts brought to the notice of the country as a whole,” he said.

The team that was attacked on Friday included Kareem, the CPM’s floor leader in the Rajya Sabha, Congress MP Khaleque, Tripura CPM state secretary Jitendra Chaudhary and Congress general secretary Ajoy Kumar. Kareem said the “special feature” of the Tripura violence was that the “goons of the BJP and RSS intentionally and meticulously” destroyed the livelihoods of poor people.

“When they file any petition or complaint before the police, the police (are) not registering FIRs but they (the victims) are booked in criminal cases. Goondas are allowed to continue their vandalism freely, (which is what) everywhere people are saying,” he said.

Kareem said that on Friday, a “group of BJP-RSS goons” shouted slogans and tried to attack the delegation and its vehicles in front of the police.

“Our hon’ble MLA’s (Gopal Roy) vehicle was completely damaged but he luckily escaped.… Two vehicles were completely damaged,” he said.

“We can’t imagine such a situation. We are MPs; we came here to understand what is going on here, not for any violence or any other purpose.”

On Saturday, the Tripura police said three people had been arrested in connection with Friday’s incident and that raids were on to arrest the remaining accused.

They added that the delegation’s security had been beefed up. Congress leader Ajoy Kumar said law and order was the easiest thing for any state government to fix unless it intended to “target” political opponents.

“If the (Union) home minister were serious about Tripura, then why are the police continuously remaining bystanders (during) the violence against the common citizens of Tripura?” Kumar said.

“Has he made a single statement? Has the PM (Prime Minister) made a single statement? Attacks on MPs are one of the most serious things in Indian parliamentary history....

“Has the HM (home minister) made a statement? So my question to the HM is that if you can’t make statements on the attacks on MPs and their delegation, then it is right for us to assume you are complicit.”

State BJP media chief Sunit Sarkar dismissed the allegations as an attempt to “defame the Tripura government and the BJP”.

“The CPM and the Congress have a very long history of brutal post-poll violence,” he told The Telegraph.