Trinamul Congress Rajya Sabha chief and party’s national spokesperson Derek O’Brien today lashed out at the Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb, saying, “When I came to a hotel in Agartala from the airport there were already 100 policemen in this hotel. Am I a terrorist?” he asked.

“I’m an MP and also have an identity card.” He said people here want Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee. “Be it Agartala, Mumbai, Chennai, Amritsar, Lucknow, Varanasi and she will take you on head-on,” he said. Similarly, he also lambasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah saying they are preventing the opposition from discussing the Pegasus issue. “We asked simple questions: who gave the order and who financed it. We are also demanding Supreme Court probe into the matter,” O’Brien said.

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He reminded the BJP central leaders and chief ministers of BJP-run states that had visited Bengal on multiple occasions during Assembly election campaigns along with CBI, ED and I-T and put national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s phone under Pegasus surveillance but they all returned with a debacle. He lashed out at the Tripura CM for “unlawfully” keeping members of the I-PAC organisation under house arrest for 48 hours in a hotel a move he alleged was made under the instructions of the ModiShah duo.

“This is nothing new but the old Gujarat model that they have already practised in 2002.” He said, “Our party chairperson Mamata Banerjee and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had asked me and MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar to visit Tripura, hold an organisational meeting and meet the common people to feel the pulse.”

O’Brien also declared that Abhishek Banerjee will be in Tripura and several meetings will be held by observing Covid norms. Tripura Trinamul Congress organisational meeting today started with a glitch as 100 policemen and armed police personnel threatened the hotel owner of dire consequences if the meeting were to take place.

After O’Brien arrived at the hotel, its owner told him the authorities wanted to see the police approval for the gathering otherwise they will be compelled to bar TMC from the organisational meeting. Members and leaders of Tripura TMC from eight districts came to the hotel to attend the meeting, said

Ashishlal Singh, Tripura state district president. “Finally, the police allowed us to hold the meeting with 50 members in the banquet hall of the hotel,” he said. The state education minister Bratya Basu said, “I along with state PWD minister Moloy Ghatak and INTTUC state president Ritabrata Banerjee visited different parts of the state and spoke to the common people.”

He said the people of Tripura are “frustrated” under three and half years of BJP rule and want a change. “After Trinamul Congress’ landslide victory in West Bengal, they want us in Tripura. Like Bengal, in Tripura too ‘Khela Hobe’. The ground is set, goal post erected, the game will begin soon,” Basu said.

The state PWD Moloy Ghatak said, “We have seen states like Punjab, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan where BJP had governments, people have voted against them. He said even in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, people voted ousted BJP.