Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has urged the people of Kerala to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to achieve a development boost. The party, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will transform the State, he said.
Mr. Deb, who was in the district to campaign for the BJP for the upcoming Assembly elections, was speaking at a press conference here on Tuesday morning.
“The people of Kerala should stop electing the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) alternately as the State had not benefited from their rule. Both the LDF and the UDF are corrupt. This is an opportunity to keep out of power the two fronts, which outside the State had joined hands, and to elect the BJP,” he said.
Citing the example of Tripura, Mr. Deb said the BJP had gone from negligible presence there to forming the government, bringing to an end 25 years of continuous Left rule, 20 of them under Manik Sarkar.
The people of Tripura knew that both the communists and the Congress were in cahoots with each other. The moment they got a commitment from the BJP, they voted for change. The BJP government had brought unprecedented all-round development to Tripura, he claimed.
Mr. Deb further said that the situation in Kerala was not very different, with the two coalitions out to make money. “The State lagged on the development front, despite being blessed with so many resources and remittances from abroad. It was behind Tripura on gross State product, compound annual growth rate in primary sector, micro, small and medium enterprises sector and in education,” he said.
Central schemes
Tripura had also made good progress in implementing Central schemes and in areas such as digitisation, he said, adding that his State was a development model for Kerala, courtesy the vision of Mr. Modi and implementation of Central schemes in a time-bound manner.
On possible anti-Left sentiment among the people, Mr. Deb said that it was “visible” around the world. “The Left is no longer real, it only exists for the sake of its cadre in a bid to control governments. It is hypocritical, cannot achieve development and seeks to put out that the BJP attempts to divide the people. In fact, the BJP, with development and employment as its main planks, wants to take along everyone with it,” he said.