Agartala: In Tripura, a government campaign to mark Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday has entered places where politics is not supposed to be the primary business: classrooms, Anganwadi centres, ration shops, Panchayat offices and public health facilities.The month-long “Seva Sankalp Abhiyan” announced by Chief Minister Manik Saha on September 14 has put the state administration behind programmes celebrating Modi’s 25 years in public life. Across 4,945 schools, children are to take part in drawing and speech competitions linked to the theme, while 10,479 Anganwadi centres have been brought into the campaign and more than six lakh diyas (earthen lamps) are being distributed through fair-price shops, Panchayat offices and Arogya Mandirs.The campaign, which began on September 17 and will continue until October 17, is not being run solely through the BJP’s organisational network. State finance minister Pranajit Singha Roy has been made the nodal minister, guardian ministers have been assigned districts and senior government officials, including district magistrates, have been brought into the administrative structure overseeing the programme. The information and cultural affairs department is the nodal department.At several district-level events, government releases have featured BJP functionaries on stage alongside ministers and district officials, in some cases identifying the party figures as “social workers” rather than by their political affiliation.8,000 posts vacant, but teachers told to light diyasOn September 16, the West Tripura district education administration issued a memorandum instructing 71 schools to send 1,358 teachers to Ujjayanta Palace in Agartala to participate in the diya-lighting programme marking the launch of the birthday campaign.Speaking to The Wire, school administrators acknowledged the memorandum and pointed out that the events fell outside classroom hours.“According to the instructions given to us by the District Education office, our teachers attended. As for whether it was mandatory, it was sort of like that. But it was held after school hours,” said Dr Nirmal Kanti Kar, Principal of Pallimangal Higher Secondary School, which was instructed to depute 25 teachers to Ujjayanta Palace.“Their only activity was to attend the lamp-lighting programme. Since he is the prime minister of our country, I do not see the politics in this. They can attend such a programme,” he added.Rajib Sinha, a Post Graduate Teacher (PGT) from the school who attended the event, said, “The event was for lighting earthen lamps on the occasion of Narendra Modi’s birthday. Our main task there was simply lighting the lamps,” Sinha said.“There was a huge crowd where speeches were being delivered, so we could not go there,” he added.BJP National General Secretary and Lok Sabha MP Biplab Kumar Deb lighting a lamp at Ujjayanta Palace in Agartala on September 17 with party colleagues, including state general secretary Chandan Debnath, MLA Dipak Majumder, Minister Tinku Roy, and acting Zilla Sabhadhipati Biswajit Shil, during events marking Modi’s birthday month. Photo: Social media.The mobilisation comes against a persistent shortage of teachers in the state’s schools. The latest UDISE+ data puts the number of single-teacher schools in Tripura at 376 for 2025-26. A NITI Aayog report, drawing on 2025-26 Project Approval Board data, records 8,020 vacant teaching posts, including 6,006 at the elementary level, 843 at the secondary level and 1,171 at the senior-secondary level. The same report records 340 single-teacher schools using the earlier 2024-25 UDISE+ dataset.These severe shortages have repeatedly pushed desperate students and parents onto the streets. Just days before the government campaign began, on September 14, students of West Rajnagar English Medium School in Khowai blocked a major road because only three teachers were available for all nursery and primary classes.The breaking points are stark across other districts as well. At Dhan Singh Choudhury Memorial School, just four teachers were left to manage nearly 400 students. At Sat Sangam High School, a single teacher was tasked with handling over 200 children in a morning section. At other institutions, students have protested over arbitrary teacher transfers or infrastructure so poor they are forced to sit on bare floors.Even the government’s flagship ‘Vidyajyoti’ model schools are buckling under the crisis. At Melaghar Higher Secondary School, parents staged a road blockade in August after noticing the entire primary section was run by only three teachers, forcing children who arrived at 6 am to be sent home by 8 am. At another model school in South Paharpur, the lack of staff meant three different classes had to be taught simultaneously in a single room, rendering their new “digital classrooms” useless.The recruitment crisis escalated on September 24 when candidates who cleared the 2024 Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) marched on the education directorate demanding immediate appointments. Police deployed water cannons and riot control vehicles, forcefully detaining protesters for blocking the road without permission. Multiple demonstrators alleged brutal treatment, accusing West Tripura police station officer-in-charge Sanjit Sen of physically assaulting a protester by grabbing him by the neck.A protest by teachers waiting for appointments in Agartala on September 24, 2026. Photo: Rahul NamasudraSpeaking from inside a police vehicle, one detained candidate described the crackdown. “Women were thrown into the drains by water cannons. Two female teachers fell under a bike,” he said. He alleged that police dragged them into vans and threatened to ruin their careers with FIRs.Speaking to the media persons, Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Panna Lal Sen defended the crackdown. “We received intelligence that they were contemplating a sudden movement targeting a vital installation,” Sen said. He stated an Executive Magistrate ordered the arrests after the crowd blocked traffic and ignored lawful commands.Also read: Violence Speaks Louder Than Politics in Tripura, Where Even Allies Settle Scores on the Streets“To cool them down, a water cannon was used on the orders of the executive magistrate, and there is no chance of getting injured by a water cannon. It is just to pacify the tension,” Sen added.Prior to the crackdown, Saha had appealed to the candidates to avoid agitations, claiming the government was keeping a close watch and would ensure eligible candidates received what is “due to them”.Opposition student and youth groups have been continuously raising the issue. Speaking to The Wire, Tripura Pradesh Youth Congress president Neel Kamal Saha said, “TET candidates have spent two years waiting for appointments. When non-political job seekers peacefully ask why the hiring process is frozen, they are dragged away and arrested by the police. The government must end this crackdown and notify the posts immediately.”The recruitment dispute has also reached the courts. In its September 9 order, the Tripura high court recorded 1,116 vacant PGT posts and 2,193 vacant Graduate Teacher posts, and directed the authorities to proceed with recruitment.The court noted that the selection process for 700 newly created Graduate Teacher posts had not progressed, besides recording vacancies among headmasters and assistant headmasters.Unpaid Anganwadi wagesThe Modi birthday campaign extends to 10,479 Anganwadi centres, where workers normally deliver child-care, nutrition and welfare services. Under the Seva Sankalp plan, these centres will host “Angan Milan Seva” programmes to engage parents, explain government schemes and assist beneficiaries.Speaking to The Wire, an Anganwadi worker from Dhalai district, Suchitra Namasudra, said, “As of now, I haven’t received any official instructions related to this. But it is better if we don’t receive them, as we are already engaged in many other events such as Poshan Pakhwada.”On August 12, workers engaged through NGOs in Anganwadi-related activities approached the Social Welfare Department alleging that they had not been paid for about nine months. They said they had been engaged under NGO arrangements since 2024 and continued to perform their assigned duties.The regular Anganwadi workforce has also been protesting over its service conditions. On May 28, the workers’ association warned of a larger agitation, while on May 3 the Tripura Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union held a sit-in in Agartala demanding regularisation, higher monthly remuneration, pension and gratuity.A teachers protest in August 2026 in Agartala. Photo: Rahul Namasudra.The dispute is also in court. On April 23, the high court sought the state government’s response on why long-serving Anganwadi workers and helpers had not been regularised.Speaking to The Wire, Purushuttam Roy Barman, Senior Advocate at the Tripura High Court and prominent human rights activist representing scheme workers, highlighted the severe operational and financial strain already imposed on the workers.“They have already won the right to gratuity following a Gujarat high court order upheld by the Supreme Court, which recognised that Anganwadi workers and helpers hold statutory posts,” Barman said.“A single judge and a division bench here also upheld their entitlement to gratuity. But the state government has filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court to stall it, and we are now fighting a contempt case to enforce the judgment,” he added.Barman noted the stark contrast between the government’s grand campaigns and the workers’ daily realities. “The Supreme Court noted they are discharging a very onerous responsibility. But they are paid a very meagre amount, and even that is irregular. For schemes like the Poshan Abhiyan, payments are made three to seven months late,” he said.Also read: Backstory: Tripura’s Style of Media Silencing Points to a Zone of DangerHe pointed out that these workers are forced to pay for rations, but the official reimbursements do not reflect current market rates. “How can they be expected to run these programmes from their own pockets? ” he added.“Workers are given a mobile recharge allowance of Rs 180 a month, but no data plan costs less than Rs 350. The government is forcibly imposing these burdens on them,” he said.He criticised the newly mandated facial recognition system for beneficiaries. “Due to poor internet connectivity in rural areas, faces often do not match, and a child has to be turned away without food. The entire system is unscientific,” Barman explained.Free diyas, but ration sugar goes missingThe campaign is also using Tripura’s network of fair-price shops, Panchayat offices and Arogya Mandirs to distribute more than six lakh diyas.A September 18 government release from Kumarghat shows that 49 fair-price shops distributed 100 earthen diyas free of cost, while the Kumarghat Panchayat Samiti supplied another 5,000 diyas to Panchayats.The government had said the diyas would be prepared with the involvement of self-help groups, then distributed via Panchayats, fair price shops and so on. But fair-price shops have been reporting shortages, including in recent days.On September 13, consumers in Kalyanpur told reporters that sugar had not been supplied through fair-price shops since August. They said sugar was available in the open market at around Rs 70 a kg, compared with the ration price of Rs 32.At Salema village in Dhalai district, dealers across all five fair-price shops confirmed to The Wire that sugar distribution had entirely ceased, even as they were instructed to distribute free diyas.“For the past two months, we haven’t received sugar from the government, and we don’t know whether the government will distribute sugar again or if the supply has been completely shut,” a local ration shop owner, Babul Saha, said.Another dealer echoed the frustration, “Sugar is not coming because the government is not supplying it. For nearly two months now, sugar has not arrived at the ration shop.”An earlier May report had raised concerns about rice, wheat flour and sugar at some outlets. The claim of a general statewide shortage has been disputed by the Sadar AMC Fair Price Shop Dealers’ Association, which attributed problems at some outlets partly to dealer-side payment and deposit issues.When The Wire contacted the state’s Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department on September 19 to ask about the reasons behind the sugar shortage, officials declined comment.Joint director of the department, Abhijit Biswas, said he was on leave and not authorised to speak to the media, directing queries to director Sumit Lodh. Lodh said he was “not authorised” to speak on the matter and redirected questions to the secretary.Party bosses disguised as social workersBJP functionaries have been seen sharing the platform with ministers, district magistrates, police officials and other government representatives in Seva Sankalp programmes, while some of them have been referred to as “social workers” rather than by their positions in the BJP in official releases.The most glaring was at the West Tripura district-level Seva Sankalp function in Agartala, attended by BJP national general secretary and Lok Sabha MP Biplab Kumar Deb, and BJP’s state general secretary and state IT cell in-charge Chandan Debnath, who were present on the stage.The event records also list BJP district presidents Prasenjit Ghosh, Samir Kumar Das, Kajal Das and Patiram Tripura from Sepahijala South, Khowai, North Tripura and Dhalai, respectively, along with Dipayan Choudhury, the BJP’s 2023 assembly candidate from Hrishyamukh, and Mandal presidents Sayantan Dutta of Belonia and Vivekananda Das of Panisagar.Lighting up clinics that treat patients by phone flashlightsThe Seva Sankalp campaign has taken the Prime Minister’s birthday celebrations into Tripura’s public health network, with Arogya Mandirs among the government facilities being used for the programme. Just as the state began lighting diyas, a district hospital in North Tripura was in the news after patients were reportedly treated using mobile phone flashlights during a power cut.Also read: BJP and Its Allies Govern Together in Tripura, Fight Each Other on the GroundThe North Tripura district administration issued a clarification on September 17, saying the report could create an impression of frequent and repeated outages. According to TSECL records cited by the administration, the hospital feeder faced three interruptions, including scheduled maintenance on August 23, accidental damage to a line on September 1 and a one-hour shutdown on September 14 for maintenance work.Days earlier, on September 10, state power minister Ratan Lal Nath had a power cut interrupt his speech at an event on the state’s Clean Energy Roadmap in Agartala.“This is the power department, don’t laugh, it’s a peculiar department,” Nath said after the interruption.Earlier, in July, the chief minister’s inspection of Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital in Agartala had brought attention to damaged furniture, water leakage and non-functional wash basins.A birthday at taxpayer’s costThe government’s decision to put its administrative machinery behind the month-long campaign has drawn objection from the CPI(M), whose state secretary, Jitendra Chaudhury, questioned the government’s priorities.Speaking to media persons on September 16, Chaudhury said, “If Narendra Modi’s birthday is organised by an individual or a political organisation on its own initiative, I have no objection. But I object to the use of the state government, government officers and the administrative machinery for programmes organised to mark the birthday of a political leader.”“The use of government money and government resources for political publicity should be stopped, and how much is planned to be spent on the different programmes should be disclosed,” he said.Chaudhury also raised the issues of Anganwadi and other scheme workers, including pending payments, as well as concerns involving police personnel, Special Police Officers and other workers.Speaking to The Wire, Senior Advocate Barman described the state-funded celebration as “completely unethical.”“The prime minister deserves respect, and he will get it, but celebrating an individual’s birthday at government expense is a shameless, naked display of a personality cult,” Barman said.Barman pointed to a recent case where the high court had to intervene after a citizen faced action for questioning the massive expenditure on a “virtual puja” for the prime minister. “Personal liberty and the right to free speech are being severely compromised,” he added.Manufacturing ‘seva’ to sanitise a political campaignThe state government insists Seva Sankalp is strictly a public service exercise. Chief minister Saha has framed the drive as an effort to deliver welfare benefits to citizens, classifying the school and Anganwadi events as simple awareness programmes.Yet the reality on the ground tells a different story. For a month, the state’s administrative machinery is doing far more than delivering services. Teachers are being pulled from understaffed classrooms, ration dealers are handing out earthen lamps while sugar stocks run dry, and BJP functionaries are sharing official stages with civil servants.As the campaign sweeps through Tripura’s institutions, the fundamental question remains: how much public money and administrative labour is being spent to celebrate the political life of a serving prime minister?