Agartala, Jan 12, 2023, IANS

Agartala, Jan 12 (IANS): The BJP's national president J.P.Nadda on Thursday lambasted the Congress and CPI-M leaders for the alleged corruption and incompetence of their governments and asked them to take rest at home for a while and let the BJP continue its development work.

Addressing a rally in Agartala, Nadda said that former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi himself confessed that 85 per cent of the central funds were siphoned off before they reached the beneficiaries while Rs 2,000 were deposited directly in the accounts of thousands of farmers within 15 seconds of Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushing the button.

Promising better governance if the Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power again in Tripura after the forthcoming assembly polls, Nadda said the Prime Minister had promised HIRA (Highway, I-way, Railway and Airway) to Tripura before the 2018 assembly polls. He said that in 2018, Tripura had only one national highway but now the state has seven national highways, there was no facility for health care and people used to go outside for treatment but today the state has seven big hospitals with all kinds of facilities, he added.

Along with the rest of the country, Tripura's connectivity has also improved during the past five years and very soon the state would be connected with the neighbouring countries.

Highlighting the Modi government's eight years' performance, Nadda said that from six, India now has 23 AIIMS and the number of medical colleges has increased to over 700 from 387 while the number of medical seats has gone up to 80,000 from 30,000. He said that the number of IITs increased from 16 to 23 and the number of universities to 1050 from 723.

"Nobody could imagine that higher education including medical education could be possible in the mother tongue. India earlier imported 92 per cent mobile sets and the country is now in the second position in the world in making mobile sets. In the automobile industry, India is now in third position after the US and China," the BJP leader stated. He said that after the Covid-19 pandemic, within nine months the country produced two Covid vaccines. India has supplied Covid vaccines to many countries.

Under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is now giving many things to many countries instead of taking many items from abroad, Nadda said.

Thursday's rally was organised at the end of the statewide 'Rath Yatra', which was flagged off by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on January 5. After traversing the 1,000 km route covering all the 60 Assembly constituencies in the state, the eight-day-long Yatra culminated in Agartala on Thursday.

Tripura BJP president Rajib Bhattacharjee said that the Rath Yatra named 'Jana Vishwas Yatra' was a part of the party's mission to connect with around 10 lakh people across the state.

Bhattacharjee told the media that two chariots moved from South Tripura and North Tripura districts on January 5. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and several central and state leaders participated in the Rath Yatra.

Nadda before flying back to Delhi, held a BJP core committee meeting to take forward the party's election campaign and strategies ahead of the assembly elections, expected to be held next month.