Prime Minister Narendra Modi focused on the Bharatiya Janata Party manifesto, his work for people welfare and development initiatives as he made a vote appeal at an election rally in Agartala on the eve of the first of the multi-phased Lok Sabha election in India. He started greeting crowds on the occasion of Rama Navami, referring to construction of the Ram temple as “ending a 500-year-long impasse”.
Mr. Modi came down heavily on the alleged opportunistic politics of the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for greed of power and indulging in corruption. “These parties are fighting in alliance in Tripura and abusing each other in Kerala,” he said, wondering how such a formation could work.
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“The past governments only looted the northeast and created unrest to ensure that the states were behind in every field and keep the vote bank intact at the cost of the suffering of people,” Mr. Modi said. He claimed that the CPI(M) led Left-front government in its long rule even did not properly implement schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, leaving people deprived.
“After the BJP government was installed in Tripura [in 2018], 3.5 lakh pucca houses were sanctioned. He listed other welfare schemes and development projects in light of his commitment to implement the HIRA [highways, internet road, railway, and airway] model,” he said.
“What we have done is just a ‘trailer’. More will be done in Tripura concerning welfare, economic growth, connectivity, and infrastructure development, and a ‘HIRA plus’ model will be added,” Mr. Modi said.
He described the erstwhile Congress government’s Look East Policy as “Loot East Policy” and said he dismantled this policy a decade ago and replaced it with the effective “Act East Policy”.
“In earlier times, Congress Ministers could not even make out where Tripura was located, but we have taken a completely different approach towards the region,” he said.
Mr. Modi said he has visited the northeast over 50 times in the past decade and drew comparisons to his predecessors. He said his commitments are his guarantees to implement in the next five years.
Mr. Modi appealed people not to waste votes by casting in favour of other parties, and urged voters to back the BJP’s Lok Sabha candidates Biplab Kumar Deb and Kriti Devi Debbarman in their respective Lok Sabha constituencies.
