BJP govt in 11-year rule destroyed democracy in the country, alleges CPI (M) leaders
Agartala, Jan 29 (IANS) Top CPI-M leaders in Tripura on Wednesday claimed that the 11-year rule of the BJP-led Narendra Modi government at the Centre destroyed democracy in the country and the saffron party was running the government to favour only the millionaires.
Addressing a public rally, CPI-M politburo member Prakash Karat said that in the last 11 years, people in the country witnessed how the Modi government destroyed democracy and arrested prominent leaders of opposition parties.
“Before Lok Sabha elections, the then Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren were arrested and put in jail to suppress their voice,” he told the gathering.
The CPI-M leader alleged that it is in the DNA of BJP’s blood to kill democracy in the country while its idealogue Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has been trying to create a ‘Hindu Rashtra’.
Criticising the ‘One Nation, One Election’ Bill, Karat said that the proposed legislation would curb the democratic rights of the people in various states.
During the Left Front rule, any communal strife never occurred but now it often took place in different places of Tripura, the CPI-M leader said, adding that imbalance was created in the country and the wealth of millionaires increased while poor people became poorer.
The public gathering was organised in connection with the three-day (January 29 to 31) 24th state conference of the CPI-M.
Former Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said that due to severe undemocratic activities, the Congress-led government was defeated and the CPI-M-led Left Front came to power for the first time in Tripura securing 56 seats in the 60-member Tripura Assembly.
Sarkar, also a CPI-M politburo member, claimed that a section of good BJP leaders was already frustrated over the misgovernance of the saffron party-led government in the state.
“Those old and sincere BJP leaders are now being sidelined. Those BJP workers worked for the party, and now they are being attacked by the BJP goons and getting no support from the state government,” he said.
Sarkar highlighted the unfulfilled promises made by BJP leaders before the 2018 Assembly election campaign, such as doubling the work days of employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to 200 and increasing daily wages to Rs 340.
He also alleged “rampant corruption and lawlessness” under the current BJP government in Tripura.
CPI-M Tripura state Secretary Jitendra Chaudhury claimed that the state’s economy has collapsed under a corrupt and autocratic BJP government, enriching only a select few people through corrupt practices.
He called on party cadres to undertake all-out efforts to oust the BJP-led government, declaring that the days of the present government are numbered as the countdown has already begun.
The 24th state conference of the CPI-M will be held before the Left party’s 24th Congress, which will be held from April 2 to 6 in Madurai.
After the BJP came to power in Tripura in 2018, the 24th CPI-M state conference was the second such mega-conference in Tripura.
The party leader said that in the state conference, the Left party would finalise the roadmap of the party’s future strategies and programmes to highlight the “misgovernance of the ruling BJP and various basic issues of the people”.
The CPI-M-led Left Front was in power in Tripura for 35 years in two phases — 1978 to 1988 and 1993 to 2018.
The Left parties suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2018 and 2023 Assembly elections and the BJP-Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) coalition came into power in Tripura.
–IANS
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