Narendra Modi accuses Congress, Left parties of having 'secret understanding' for Tripura polls

Agartala/Santir Bazar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Congress and Left parties of having a “secret understanding” for the 18 February Tripura Assembly polls. “Congress and Left parties like in Kerala and West Bengal have a secret deal for the Tripura polls. To change the future of Tripura, reject the two parties and vote for BJP,” Modi said while addressing two election rallies. “Both parties destroyed Tripura. Do not trust them. By putting up candidates in the elections, Congress is doing drama in Tripura though both the Congress and Left parties have ‘dosti’ (friendship) in Delhi,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_4353523” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a rally in Agartala on Thursday. PTI[/caption] “No big Congress leader came to Tripura for election campaign because they (Congress and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) have a clandestine pact.” Terming the Congress as “vote cutting party”, the Prime Minister said the Congress is “helping” CPM to win Sunday’s polls. Modi asked the people to “uproot” the Left parties from Tripura and throw them to “some corner of the earth”. The Prime Minister said the Rose valley chit fund organisation (a Kolkata based company) had pilfered several thousand crore of rupees of 14 lakh Tripura people and accused the Left Front government of not having properly probed the scam. “After assuming power (in Tripura), the BJP government will inquire into the robbing of huge sums of poor people’s money,” Modi told the gathering. In his second phase of election campaigning in Left-ruled Tripura, Modi on Thursday addressed two election rallies with almost the same issues and topics. He came to Tripura from Arunachal Pradesh capital Itanagar and addressed a mammoth rally at Santir Bazar in southern Tripura and gave a speech at another public gathering in Agartala before leaving for Delhi. Earlier on 8 February, the prime minister addressed two election rallies in northern Tripura and western Tripura. Attacking the CPM-led government, the Prime Minister said that of every Rs 100 spent, the central government is providing Rs 80 but there is no sign of spending the central fund properly. The prime minister said the central government long back had given Rs 988 crore for implementation of the Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana in Tripura but the works valued at Rs 650 crore were started recently. “Under the non-lapsable pool of resources scheme Rs 242 crore had been given to Tripura in four years but Rs 60 crore still remained unspent.” “The Left parties have been misleading the people and encashing the poverty of the people,” he said. He said the Left government has been providing salaries and allowances to state government employees according to what should have been given to government employees 25 to 30 years ago. He promised that a BJP government would provide higher scale of salaries and allowances to state government employees at par with the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations. Modi said the central government has invested thousands of crores to expand the rail and road network in Tripura. “The Agartala airport is being developed and digital network is also being upgraded in Tripura.” “To improve the livelihood of the people, the central government has made easy accessible of bamboo. The government would provide houses to all and electricity to each household across the country.” He said that democracy “is in danger” under the rule of Left Front in Tripura. Modi said the CPM during its 25-years rule “destroyed both democracy and the future of Tripura”. He accused the CPM party cadres of killing 10 BJP functionaries and two young journalists and promised that a high level inquiry would be held and the perpetrators punished when a BJP led government comes to power. He said he would attend the swearing-in ceremony of the BJP ministers after 3 March. BJP’s national general secretary Ram Madhav, Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is the party’s Tripura election in-charge, and state president Biplab Kumar Deb among others also spoke at the rallies.