With assembly polls just a year away, Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) is using “undemocratic means” to gain a foothold in Tripura, chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb has said.

Deb told ET in an interview that AITC had become “an extreme version of CPM and is hatching conspiracies and using undemocratic means” to gain vote share in the state.

“People of the state were fed up with the Left model of governance and, thus, after 25 years of their misrule, they threw them out of power by imposing faith in us. They have given us the responsibility for the all-round development of Tripura, and we are leaving no stone unturned to do that,” he said.

Both the CPM and the TMC have previously accused Deb of running a “fascist” government and for not dealing with the issue of widespread unemployment.

The Left Front-ruled Tripura from 1978 to 1988, and again from 1993 to 2018. The BJP came to power in 2018.

Claiming that there will never be a resurgence of CPM in the state, Deb said once the Left parties are thrown out of power, they never come back.

“People of Tripura are going to continue this streak. They have full faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modiji’s vision and will reject forces that are against development and social harmony,” he said.

Lashing out at the AITC, Deb said, be it “political violence or politicising the administration, Mamata Banerjee has copy-pasted the CPM style of rule.”

“In fact, I would rather say that TMC has four times more political gimmicks compared to CPM,” he said.