After massive rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Agartala’s Vivekananda stadium, where he launched a slew of development projects in poll-bound state including ‘Ghreha Pravesh’ for Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) scheme, inauguration of Hotel Management Institute and Dental College  and laying of foundation stone virtually for 32 roads under PM Gram Sadak Yojana with length of 232 kilometers and 112 road projects with length of 542 KMs, both opposition CPI(M) and Congress  reacted sharply and claimed BJP is using government machinery for their political mileage.

CPI(M) state secretary Jitendra Chowdhury soon after the mass rally on Sunday, speaking with media persons, claimed that Sunday’s meeting was a government sponsored party meeting and the PM only set off the BJP’s campaign for the 2023 assembly election.

He took exception to the PM’s comment that insurgency and violence had flourished under the previous government, saying that with serious political initiative and deployment by the previous Left Front governments had put an end to decades old armed insurgency in Tripura. He also said that the work on Agartala-Akhaura railway link had commenced before 2018 but over the past five years there has been very little progress in the work and it is highly doubtful whether this will be completed in 2023, as announced.

“Whatever the PM had announced and inaugurated are all projects initiated during the LF rule; but the most amazing thing is his reference to bloodshed and insurgency during the previous regime; the LF had settled the problem but now blood shed is happening at the hands of the BJP workers and supporters and people are suffering,”, said Chowdhury and added that there is no rule of law and no existence of constitution in Tripura.

During the last five years no initiative has been taken to develop the industrial sector of the state and for employment generation, instead of opening new industries and for their poor policies, many industries and production units  have been shut down, said Chowdhury.

Chowdhary also criticized the Modi-led government at the Center for the development of ‘tribals’ and said, “Prime Minister Modi today claimed that his government has worked for the development of tribals, but we have seen that a large number of people were evicted. The tribal families of Gujarat were forced to install Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s statue and the government neither compensated those evicted tribal families.

Speaking with media Congress leader and MLA Sudip Roy Barman said that yesterday’s meeting of the Prime Minister had an expense of Rs 20 crores from the government exchequer and people were disappointed by the utterances of the PM. He alleged that disappointment of people showed after non-announcement of any new project by the PM as all the projects he announced had been sanctioned by the previous UPA government with allocation of funds.

Sudip also said that the PM had made no announcement for the thousands of unemployed youths in the state and even there was no announcement for the 10,323 retrenched teachers. He said that all the projects that the PM announced had been sanctioned with funds by the previous UPA government.