Why was Chief Minister of Tripura’s speech blacked out?

The elected Chief Minister of Tripura Manik Sarkar Independence day speech on August 15^th in Agartala was blacked out on Doordarshan and on All India Radio after he refused to make changes to it. This was a first after the days of Emergency. What was the gist of his speech that made the central government so uneasy that it had to be censored at any cost?

Spirit of secularism under attack

“Before us on this year’s Independence Day are quite a few very relevant, important and contemporary issues. Unity in diversity is India’s traditional heritage. Great values of secularism have helped in keeping Indians together as a nation. But today, this spirit of secularism is under attack.”

“Conspiracies and attempts are underway to create an undesirable complexity and divisions in our society by inciting passions to convert India into a particular religious country and in the name of protecting the cow. Because of all these people of Minority and Dalit communities are under attack.”

Reiterating former Vice-president Hamid Ansari’s view, Sarkar also said, “Their sense of security is being shattered.”

RSS was servile to British

Taking a dig at RSS, the CM of Tripura who heads the Left, Manik Sarkar also said that “the followers of these disruptive attempts” were not “associated with the Independence movement, they infact sabotaged the freedom movement, were servile to the atrocious plunderer and merciless British.”