Tipra Motha supremo slams Yunus over claim of B'desh being 'guardian of ocean'

Agartala, Mar 31 (PTI) Tipra Motha Party (TMP) supremo Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma on Monday said that letting go of the Chittagong port in present-day Bangladesh in 1947 was India's "biggest mistake”, and made a pitch for a route to the ocean with the support "indigenous people".
    The comment of the head of the TMP, an ally of the ruling BJP in Tripura, came in response to a remark by Bangladesh Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus who had claimed that his country was the “guardian of the ocean” (Bay of Bengal).
    Debbarma shared on X a 14-second video clip of Yunus addressing a programme apparently in China, in which the Chief Advisor of Bangladesh purportedly said that India has seven landlocked states in its eastern part, known as “seven sisters”.
    “They (those seven states) have no way to reach the ocean. We are the guardian of the ocean (Bay of Bengal),” he said.
    The TMP supremo sharply reacted to Yunus’s claim of Bangladesh being the “guardian of the ocean”.
    “Time for India to make a route to the ocean by supporting our indigenous people who once ruled Chittagong so we are no longer dependent on an ungrateful regime. India’s biggest mistake was to let go of the port (Chittagong) in 1947 despite the hill people living there wanting to be a part of the Indian Union,” Debbarma said.
    He said, “Mr Yunus may think he is the guardian of the ocean but the reality is he is a stop-gap leader at the age of almost 85. Let’s not forget Tripura is only a few miles away from the port”.
    During the regime of Sheikh Hasina, Dhaka has allowed India to use its Chittagong Port through South Tripura’s Sabroom sub-division which is connected to the port through the Maitree bridge over River Feni. The port is around 75 kilometres from the Land Port in Sabroom.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)