Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday visited a village for rehabilitation of displaced Bru tribals. During this, he accused the Left parties of making Tripura a ‘backward’ state during their 35-year rule. Addressing a public meeting, Shah said that progress could be made here only after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in the state in 2018.
Amit Shah said that during the communist rule, Tripura had lagged behind on all parameters of development, but is now moving forward on the path of progress. He said, ‘Communists ruled Tripura for 35 years. The communists claimed that they worked for the welfare of the poor. Congress also ruled Tripura for a long time. But the people of the state always remained poor. When BJP came to power, there was development in Tripura.
Shah said that when he came to Tripura as BJP president in 2017 and stayed for five days, only 11 people had taken membership of the party. He said, ‘Slowly we started our work. We worked hard and after years of hard work we were able to oust the communists from power.
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The Home Minister said that during the Left rule, only 2.5 percent people used to get drinking water from tap and now 85 percent people get potable water. He said that under the communist rule the poor did not get free grains, but now each person gets five kilograms of rice and everyone is getting free treatment up to Rs five lakh.
Shah said investment has come to Tripura and people are getting free electricity and LPG connections. He said now the school dropout rate is less than three percent, while enrollment is 99 percent, but this rate was much worse during the Left rule. He said, ‘There is now peace in Tripura after the signing of peace accord with the rebels. With the blessings of Mother Tripurasundari, Tripura will be one of the most developed states in the country. Today I am feeling immense happiness.
Referring to the rehabilitation of Bru refugees, the Home Minister said that the BJP governments at the Center and the state have decided to rehabilitate 40,000 displaced people. He said, ‘The Bru people were living in inhuman conditions. But the Left government never took any steps to improve their condition. Now we are working on it and have already settled 11 villages, while the work of settling one more village is in progress.
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Shah said that the Bru people are now getting all the freedoms that any other Indian citizen gets. He said that now they have Aadhar card, they are enrolled in the voter list, they have ration cards and all this has been ensured by the Modi government. He said that the rehabilitated people were given Rs 1.5 lakh to construct their houses, Rs 4 lakh as fixed deposit and Rs 5,000 as monthly installment for 24 months.