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Agartala: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh addresses a gathering during Tripura assembly election campaign roadshow in Agartala, Tripura on Sunday. PTI Photo(PTI2_4_2018_000084B)[/caption]
Agartala, Feb. 4 (PTI): Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said “lotus will bloom” in Tripura after the Assembly polls as the people of the state are “disenchanted” with the “corrupt” Left Front government.
Tripura is set go to polls on February 18 and the results will be declared on March 3.
“Seeing the huge turnout at the party’s road show, ‘Vijay Sankalapa Yatra’, this morning, I now have no doubt that the corrupt Left Front government will be rooted out in the Assembly polls,” he said at a public rally at Indranagar in the northern part of the state capital.
The home minister said he was surprised to find out that 66 per cent of the people live below poverty line in the state.
“Lotus blooms in mud. The CPI(M) government, with its scams and corrupt practices over the last 25 years, has created the ground for the blooming of lotus,” he said.
Earlier, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh were referred to as “the weak and sick states of the country” but after the BJP came to power in these states, the problems have been taken care of, the Union minister claimed.
“Not a single minister has indulged in any corrupt practice in the NDA governments under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi,” he said.
The Vajpayee-led government had formed the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) for the welfare of the people, he noted.
Singh also criticised the Tripura government over the law and order situation in the state and promised to order a CBI probe into the killings of two journalists there if the BJP is voted to power.
Shantanu Bhowmick (28), a journalist of local TV channel ‘Din Rat’, and Sudip Datta Bhaumick (50) of ‘Syandan Patrika’, were killed in a span of two months in the second half of last year.
“The Manik Sarkar-led government did not recommend a CBI inquiry into the killings of the two scribes here despite pleas by journalist associations. The national average of conviction rate is 46, in Tripura it is 22,” he said.
The minister also said that the central government maintains a cordial relationship with its counterpart in Bangladesh and the bilateral ties have helped India contain insurgency in the state to a great extent.
The common people he“But as the home minister of the country, I can say that if the BJP is voted to power there will be no violence. We will provide safety and security to all, including the supporters and the leaders of the CPI(M),” he added.
297 candidates in fray for Tripura assembly polls
Some 297 candidates, including 20 women, are in the fray for the February 18 Tripura Assembly polls, an official said here on Sunday.
Tripura Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sriram Taranikanti said 320 candidates had submitted their nominations out of which candidatures of 13 were cancelled.
Those who withdrew include Congress candidate Sukumar Chandra Das, former Tripura Chief Minister Samir Ranjan Barman and Tribal-based party Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura’s (INPT) Tarani Sadhan Jamatia.
Das, who had filed for Kakraban-Shalgarha assembly seat on a Congress ticket joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday night.
Barman said he took the decision after requests by BJP state President Biplab Kumar Deb and Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is BJP’s election in-charge for Tripura.
The CEO said that in all 25,79,060 electorates, including 12,67,785 females, are eligible to cast their votes on February 18 to elect a new 60-member assembly.
The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has fielded 57 candidates leaving one seat each to its Left Front partner Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party.
The BJP is contesting from 51 seats. It has left nine seats for its electoral ally, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT). Congress candidates have filed from 59 constituencies. Trinamool Congress has nominated 24 candidates.
The Election Commission has appointed 25 general observers, eight police observers and 19 expenditure observers to oversee the poll process in Tripura. Over 30,000 civil officials would be engaged to conduct the single phase assembly elections.
Besides, the poll panel, on the request of the state government, would deploy more than 30,000 additional central para-military forces before the elections.
