Left confident of winning Tripura polls

With state Assembly elections in Tripura drawing closer, the ruling Left Front is looking for a “clean sweep” for the fourth time in a row. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar is banking upon..

With state Assembly elections in Tripura drawing closer, the ruling Left Front is looking for a “clean sweep” for the fourth time in a row. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar is banking upon development as the key to win the polls.

“Normally it is difficult for an incumbent Government to pull through. But our Government has been able to bring about a massive change in the lives of the common people, with infrastructure, health, education and peace being the most important areas of good governance,” Gautam Das, spokesman of the ruling Left Front told The Indian Express here on Friday.

The Front had won 41 seats out of 60 in 2003, with the Congress and its ally the Indigenous National Party of Tripura (INPT) headed by underground leader Bijoy Hrangkhwal winning the remaining 19. The Congress on its own has 13 seats.

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“The Left Front tally will go up further when Tripura goes to polls in March or April. The people are with us. There has also been an exodus of Congress and INPT workers to the Front,” said Das, also a member of the CPI(M)’s state secretariat.

Das outlined three areas in which the Left Front Government has made “significant progress” in the past five years. “The common people’s daily needs have been adequately met, and Tripura is heading towards self-sufficiency in foodgrains in 2010,” he said.

He also claimed “a tremendous change” in the state’s infrastructure, especially road connectivity. “Every sub-divisional town is today inter-connected by good roads, and we are connecting every village with pucca roads in another couple of years. This has also helped control law and order because better roads have facilitated better movement for security forces,” he said.

A railway track connecting Agartala to Guwahati and the rest of the country will soon be completed and the first train from Agartala is to start by January 26, said Das.

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On the insurgency front, the Front spokesman said large number of tribal youth in rural areas who used to be earlier drawn towards insurgency now have jobs. “Our Government has been able to engage several thousand rural youth in various income-generating programmes.

“This has made a solid negative impact on insurgency,” he claimed. Over 30,000 families who earlier either had nothing to do or engaged in jhum cultivation, today have permanent cultivable land.

“Each of these families are being given two hectares of land to cultivate rubber, and they would be given land holding titles at the end of seven years,” he added.