‘Only BJP can…’: Nadda at end of 8-day Jan Vishwas Ratha Yatra in Tripura

Nadda said only the BJP can provide sustained development and progress with frog leaps whereas the Congress and the communists “kept the state and the country backward”.

Addressing the gathering to officially end the yatra, Nadda said the last day was set on the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda to signify the importance of his doctrines on self-reliance and swabhimaan (self-respect).

“Its Yuva Diwas today (Thursday), the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. It’s a good day to gather with a sankalp (resolution). Swamiji used to say that a country should set an aim and should contribute to fulfill the aim. He said India is a swabhimani country (with self-respect) and will move ahead towards self-reliance. India and its youths are surging ahead towards self-reliance and atmanirbharta (self-sufficiency) under PM Modi,” he said.

Nadda cited the BJP government’s start-up initiatives, stand-up initiatives, initiatives to set up 23 AIIMS, over 700 medical colleges, boost to the number of medical seats to 80,000 every year, 23 IITs, 20 IIMs and 1,050 universities across the country in the last seven years and said his government offers development and progress while Congress and the communist regimes in Tripura and the rest of the country were purportedly “replete with corruption, violence, crimes, partisan politics and under-development”.

Citing data by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the BJP chief said now less than 1 per cent people across the country are severely poor due to the poverty alleviation initiatives and the free ration benefits rolled out to 80 lakh Indians during the Covid-19 pandemic by the Modi government.

“The UPA regime was riddled with corruption, extortions and slumped development work. It picked up pace after the BJP came to power and Modiji became the PM. Despite the Covid-induced pandemic, the Indian economy is going ahead and has become the fifth largest economy of the world. Tripura is writing new stories of development as well and this has to be taken ahead,” Nadda said and appealed to the people to vote for the BJP for a second term in Tripura.

Warning the people against yet another communist rule, Nadda said, “The CPI(M) rule was riddled with rapes, strikes, cease-works, sloganeering, forceful levy from government employees, monthly extortions in the name of subscriptions and political violence.” He added that the BJP government is all about highways, Internet, railways, airways, hospitals, corruption-free and being pro-development. “If light has to be appreciated, the darkness has to be remembered. BJP has to be returned to power and darkness has to be rejected,” Nadda said.

While Opposition parties, including the CPI(M), Congress and Trinamool Congress, repeatedly accused the BJP of political violence since 2018, Nadda Thursday said ever since the BJP-led government was formed in Tripura five years back, there has been no political violence and not a single political murder.

Interestingly, Nadda raised pro-BJP slogans and asked the people of Tripura to form a BJP government yet again but did not mention anything on any possible alliance. He also did not mention the saffron party’s existing ally — the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT).

Two legs of the ambitious Ratha Yatra were flagged off by Union Home Minister Amit Shah from Dharmanagar in North Tripura and Sabroom of South Tripura on January 5. Both the yatras covered an estimated distance of 1,000 km, traversing through 56 of the 60 Assembly constituencies of the state, while in the four remaining Assembly constituencies, yatras were taken out locally and later merged with the main procession.

The eight-day long yatras included 200 meetings, 100 padyatras and 50 roadshows among other events and claimed to have connected with 10 lakh people of the state.