Lotus will bloom in Tripura: Shah
AGARTALA: Get rid of “Manik’s sarkar” and bring in the “lotus”, BJP president Amit Shah asked voters in Tripura on Sunday as the party pushed to topple the Left Front’s 25-year uninterrupted rule in the northeastern state that votes for a new assembly on February 18.
Shah took the battle to longtime chief minister Manik Sarkar as he urged people at a rally in a school playground, around 15km from the state capital, to vote for the BJP’s lotus poll symbol and chanted the party’s slogan for Tripura — Chalo Paltai — meaning ‘let’s change’ in Bengali.
“A change is required in the state. But it will not be limited to change of government, chief minister or MLAs. It will be a change in the existing exhausted situation of the people here. And the BJP is the alternative to bring a change,” the party chief said, pointing to the two-decade continuous rule of Sarkar, one of the longest-serving chief ministers in the country.
He asked the people to oust the Sarkar government and accused Marxists of pocketing public money meant for development and triggering violence to stay in power.
Tripura is riddled with unemployment, low pay, poor safety record for women, and bad healthcare infrastructure because of the long Leftist rule, he alleged.
Promising to make Tripura a model state if voted to power, the BJP president said the Narendra Modi government has sanctioned more than ₹25,000 crore for welfare projects in Tripura.
“Vote for BJP on February 18 and let us form the government on March 3. The next day we will start implementation the Seventh Pay Commission for employees. Besides, we will provide at least one job to each family, enhance minimum wages of labourers to ₹340, give free health insurance to BPL households and drinking water too,” Shah said.
Shah also drew on Tripura’s icons and alleged that the Left government did not observe birth anniversaries of national figures such as Swami Vivekananda, Rabindra Nath Tagore and the state’s last king, Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Deb Burman, though that of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were never missed out.
“None of the national icons, including the last king, are recalled on their birth anniversaries in the Marxist-ruled state. They all would be given due honour in the BJP’s reign,” said Shah, who is on a two-day visit to the state to boost the party’s campaign.
Union roads minister Nitin Gadkari addressed a rally in Rajnagar, nearly 120km from Agartala, on Sunday afternoon and assured ₹11,000-crore worth of projects to build and repair roads in the state and give jobs to 200,000 people if the BJP comes to power.