Sad to see some BJP workers, influenced by Opposition, get deviated during polls: Tripura CM Manik Saha

“Our party is for 365 days, not for elections alone. We worked for the last 5 years. But it is saddening that our own people had mental deviations (during elections). We give lessons about our nationalist party in training camps that we think about our country alone. Why do such deviations still happen! It must be discussed why the mental balance of our karyakartas (workers) deviated,” he said while speaking at a voluntary blood donation camp organized at Bardowali on the outskirts of Agartala city this afternoon.

CM Saha said the BJP listens to the mann ki baat (words of the heart) of BJP workers and questioned why they were influenced by parties claiming “aitasi (we are coming”), in an oblique reference to the opposition Left-Congress partnership claim that they would come to power.

“Supporters of those parties are listening to them, though they don’t work for the people. Why don’t our people have that kind of stability? Why is our confidence level so low! We have to work ahead with faith. Elections will come and go but our Karyakartas must have a high confidence level,” the CM said.

In a terse message to political hooligans, without naming anyone in particular, the Chief Minister warned that the BJP-led government would not tolerate any sort of extortion and hooliganism.

“We have got reports of extortion from different areas. Different parties had done the business of extortion all these days and it has gone inside many people. We shall not tolerate it in any way. The way we are thinking to make Nasha-Mukt Tripura, we shall also ensure that Tripura is made extortion-mukt”, the CM announced.

CM Saha said his government would make the state extortion-free, just like the previous BJP-led government worked to free the state from ‘nasha’ or addiction. Saha’s predecessor Biplab Kumar Deb had started an anti-drug movement shortly after the first BJP-led government came to power in the state in 2018 and announced ‘Nasha-Mukt Tripura’. Though a huge number of drugs are being seized every month in different parts of the state, the state government claims the seizures and recoveries are proof that the government’s call for ‘nasha-mukt Tripura’ is paying off and people are coming forward against drugs.

Earlier in October last year, CM Saha said at the 70th North Eastern Council (NEC) plenary meeting at Guwahati that Tripura was being used as “corridor” for drug trafficking from Myanmar and Bangladesh and said stern steps were being taken to combat drugs.

In a surprise move in May 2022, Saha replaced Biplab Deb barely nine months before the assembly polls.