Tripura polls to show which way the country will move: Karat

The February 18 Assembly polls were important not only for Tripura, but entire India, as it would show which way the country would move, CPI(M) politburo member Prakash Karat said here today.
All the earlier elections in the north-eastern state were fought between the Left Front and the Congress but this time, it was a contest between the BJP and the Left Front as the Congress leaders and supporters had joined the saffron party, he said.
"It is like old wine in a new bottle. But I have no doubt that the conscious voters of the state will again support the Left Front to form its eighth government under Chief Minister Manik Sarkar," Karat said, addressing an election rally here in South Tripura district.

He alleged that the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) was the mask of the insurgents, who had killed the people of the state a decade-and-a-half ago.
The BJP forging an alliance with such a party was tantamount to sedition, the senior CPI(M) leader said.
Karat further alleged that the BJP-IPFT alliance had hatched a conspiracy, so that the Left Front could not return to power.

But he expressed confidence that the people of the state, who were zealously guarding the Left Front government, would foil all such conspiracies.
Karat said there had been riots in the BJP-ruled states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and alleged that the saffron party was harassing people in the name of cow protection.

He asserted that the Left Front government in Tripura was the most clean and pro-people and that it always tried to protect the harmony between the tribals and non-tribals.
This Left Front government had formed the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council to safeguard the interests of tribals and provided land rights to the landless people, the former CPI(M) general secretary said.
Claiming that the BJP-led central government had failed on all fronts, he alleged that this year's budget was an attack on the working class as all of its provisions were aimed at protecting the interests of the corporates.