India News | TMC Team 'detained': Mamata to Send Party MPs to Tripura

New Delhi, Jul 28 (PTI) TMC MPs Derek O'Brien and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar will visit Tripura on Thursday, days after a team sent by the party to the BJP-ruled state was detained there.

Tripura, which goes to polls in 2023, is likely to be a litmus test for the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which is looking to expand its base after its emphatic victory in the West Bengal Assembly polls.

"We sent people to Tripura to do an initial study. On Tuesday night, they got a notice that a criminal investigation was initiated against them.

"A team is already there. When they revert, I will send Abhishek (Banerjee), Derek (O'Brien) and others," West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee told reporters here.

Sources in the TMC said the party is reviewing its poll prospects in other states and some alliances are likely to be firmed up once the coronavirus situation normalises.

They indicated that the TMC is gearing up to either "win the polls" or emerge as the main opposition party in Tripura.

Banerjee accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the northeastern state of keeping the TMC team members in detention in a hotel and getting an FIR lodged against them.

West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu and Law Minister Moloy Ghatak are in Agartala, she said.

The TMC team, along with representatives of I-PAC, the company headed by poll strategist Prashant Kishor, was in Tripura to conduct a survey, party leaders said here.

The sources said Ghatak was sent to Tripura after the state police asked two members of the I-PAC team to appear before them by August 1, failing which legal actions could be taken against them.

In 2016, the TMC had emerged as the principal opposition party in Tripura after six Congress MLAs switched sides and joined the Banerjee-led party. However, with Mukul Roy leaving the TMC and joining the BJP, the party's prospects suffered a setback in the northeastern state.

In the 2018 Tripura polls, the BJP won 36 seats and the IPFT eight, while the CPI-M's tally was reduced to 16 and the Congress and the TMC drew a blank.

Following the landslide victory in the West Bengal Assembly polls, the TMC has decided to revive its fortunes in Tripura.

The party is hoping that Roy's return and Kishor's guidance will work in its favour in the 2023 Tripura polls.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)