Agartala: Former Tripura Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Manik Sarkar on Wednesday expressed apprehensions over the large-scale poll rigging in the forthcoming 2023 Assembly elections and urged the party workers to stand against the BJP-backed hoodlums who will certainly become active during the polls to ‘loot the votes’.
“The voters must not compromise this time. You have to resist and stand solid against the deadly attack on democracy. This time the looting of votes will not be allowed. Let the slogan of ‘my vote my right’ be raised in such a manner that the assailants of democracy feel threatened,” claimed Sarkar.
The leader of the opposition was speaking at a condolence meeting of late CPI-M leader Haricharan Sarkar at Bamutia market under West Tripura district. Stating that the BJP came to power in 2018 by deceiving people with false promises, he said, “We had tried to make people aware of the deceptive campaign carried out by the BJP before the 2018 Assembly polls.”
“The BJP allured the youth by promising jobs in lieu of missed calls. They have made 299 such promises and all of which turned out to be empty and fake. Now they are claiming that 100 percent of what was promised had been delivered already. A Chief Minister from a neighboring state is saying that the government has delivered even a few percent more than 100. What is the experience of the public out there on the ground?” asked Sarkar.
Training his guns on the ruling BJP, Sarkar said, “The people in the ruling party try to hoodwink the voters by crediting itself for the grand airport that came up at Narsingarh. They must have forgotten that 90 percent of the work was completed before they came to power. The railway line extension to Bangladesh was sanctioned when the Left government was in power. I was present in the meeting of North East Chief Ministers convened by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. For the last five years, they have failed to lay 15 kilometers of railway tracks. Instead of counting their achievements, they should list their failures.”
EASTMOJO PREMIUM
Help sustain honest journalism.
The former Chief Minister also claimed that the government of Tripura had declared war against the youth stung by unemployment. “The 10,323 teachers who sided with the BJP with high hopes of getting reinstated in service are now in the streets. The youth of the state are victims of police lathi charge. No one in the ruling party is ready to face the truth,” he pointed out.
Also read | Tripura: 15-year-old tribal girl gangraped in Gomati; 3 arrested