The Hindu : National : Vote Left Front out of power, Sonia urges Tripura voters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Vote Left Front out of power, Sonia urges Tripura voters

Sushanta Talukdar

— Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

wooing voters: Congress president Sonia Gandhi at an election rally in Agartala on Monday.

Agartala: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday appealed to the people of Tripura to create history by voting out the Left Front from power.

Addressing an election rally at the Astabal ground here, she said the people must defeat the Left Front in the February 23 Assembly elections to end its “misrule” and “injustice towards the people.”

Ms. Gandhi dispelled rumours that the Congress would be soft on the CPI(M)-ruled States because the latter supported the UPA government at the Centre. It was a false campaign, she said.

The UPA chairperson said the Congress took the support of the CPI(M) to fight the communal forces such as the Bharatiya Janata Party and to keep the NDA out of power. But that did not mean that it would not fight injustice.

“We are fully with you in your fight against injustice and misrule of the Left Front government.” Ms. Gandhi said she would go to West Bengal and tell the people there the same thing.

Ms. Gandhi, who was here on a day’s visit to campaign for her party, said there was no semblance of law and order in the State. Women and children were not safe under the Left rule, she added.

Accusing the Left Front government of failing on the economic front, she alleged that it did not utilise about Rs. 500 crore meant for development work.

There were anomalies in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Bharat Nirman Programme.

Ms. Gandhi said she was told that while there were over five lakh unemployed youth in the State, the Left Front government was giving jobs to cadres of a party.

In an oblique reference to the Left Front’s criticism of the Congress’ alliance with the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), she said: “Some people have accused us of forging alliance with the wrong people. I want to clarify that because of the Congress several misguided youth had returned to the mainstream.”

Pointing to portraits of the former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi at the venue, she said they sacrificed their lives for national integration and social justice.

State Congress president Samir Ranjan Barman and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chavan also urged the voters to defeat the Left Front.

Corrections and clarifications

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National