Tripura CM tells BJP workers to be modest

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb today asked the leaders and workers of the ruling BJP to be more modest and not to be guided by "ego and power-illusion".

The BJP came to power in Tripura in a landslide victory in the February 18 vote, defeating the 25-year-long regime of the CPI(M) led Left Front. The saffron party and its ally, the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura, secured 44 seats in the 60-member assembly.

"The leaders and workers should not be guided by ego and power-illusion. They should be more modest to people and should not consider themselves more important than the party," Deb said at a the BJP's 39th foundation day programme here.

Deb, also the party's state unit president, said the leaders should always remember that people were the main driving force who brought the BJP to power.

"The BJP's rise to power is a story of grit and hard labour of thousands of workers at the grass root level. Not everyone becomes minister, MLA or councillor. But everyone can become a party of the government," he said.

He warned party leaders against self-glorification.

"I became chief minister because the party gave me the responsibility. If I start living in the illusion that BJP is known for me, I would be the worst fool in the world," Deb said.

BJP general secretary and in-charge of the north-east, Ajay Jamwal, praised workers for the party's landslide victory and said a "change of approach" was needed for development of Tripura.

"A society does not change with the change of government. It changes when people's thought change. Tripura was ruled by Congress or communist parties for a long time and now peoples' thought must change to a positive direction," Jamwal said.