No political violence in Tripura: BJP

Asserting that there is no political violence in Tripura, the state's ruling BJP on Monday dismissed CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury's claim that total lawlessness prevailed in the state and four Left cadres were murdered under the new regime.

"Sitaram Yechury's claim was completely false and malicious... (and meant) to malign the BJP government's image. Law and order situation is much better than the Left's 25 years rule. Peace prevails in the state and the new government has taken a policy of zero tolerance to crime," Bharatiya Janata Party's Tripura state General Secretary Pritima Bhowmik told the media.

Referring to Yechury's claim that four Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) members were killed after the BJP came to power in March, she said: "People had witnessed worst-ever, post-poll violence after assembly elections in 2008 and 2013. At least 11 BJP activists were killed before February 18 assembly elections."

She attributed the deaths of the Left activists to either property disputes or "internal problems".

"There was not single political murder in the past four months even there is no political violence since BJP came to power," Bhowmik said.

Yechury on Sunday claimed that democracy and the people's rights have been totally destroyed in West Bengal and Tripura and to draw national attention to the issue, all Left parties would hold a sit-in outside Parliament on July 24.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb also denied that any people from Tripura went to neighbouring Bangladesh for livelihood, as a CPI-M leader had alleged.

"Occasionally people from Tripura are going to Bangladesh for numerous purposes. But nobody from the state had gone to Bangladesh in search of food or due to poverty," Deb told the media here on Sunday.

CPI-M Chief Whip in Lok Sabha Jitendra Chowdhury and other Left leaders had earlier said that around 600 tribals of three villages of mountainous Gobinda Bari areas of northern Tripura went to Bangladesh as they were unable to survive in the state in view of the huge crisis of food and rural jobs.

Deb, who is also the President of the BJP state unit, said that his government has identified "Distress Paras" (distressed habitats) in ten blocks in the interior and tribal areas and are providing free ration (20 kg rice per month) to the 62,000 families living there for two months - July and August.

--IANS

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