Agartala, Feb 18 (IANS) Congress president Sonia Gandhi Monday urged the people to vote out the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) led Left Front government in Tripura in the Feb 23 assembly election.
“There is a wrong perception that the Congress is soft towards the Left parties as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre is taking their support,” Gandhi told a well-attended election rally at Dharmanagar, 210 km from here.
She said: “The Congress had taken the Left parties’ support in compulsion to run the government only to keep Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other communal forces out of power.”
Coming down heavily on the CPI-M, Gandhi said: “Due to the misrule of the Left Front government, Tripura has been lagging behind. People here are suffering a lot and no real development has taken place.”
“Though the Left parties support the Congress-led central government from outside, we are opposing them in several states, including Tripura to protest against the atrocities on women and other weaker sections of the society and to seek their all round development.”
“The Left Front government failed to spend Rs.5 billion, sanctioned by the central government during the past few years,” said Gandhi, who gave a 13-minute speech in Hindi winning loud applause from the gathering.
The Congress leader also blamed the Left Front government for alleged deterioration of the economic situation of the state and providing jobs only to the party cadres.
“Corruption, lawlessness and unemployment problems have crossed all limits in Tripura and the Congress would not tolerate this misrule,” she warned.