Left, Congress and Tipra Triple Trouble, says Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Sunday that the Tripura assembly polls to be held on February 16 is a fight between "the double-engine Sarkar and the triple trouble-makers", hinting at the Left -Congress-Tipra Motha Party combine. Addressing election rallies in Chandipur in northern Tripura and Charilam in western Tripura, he said the Congress and Left regimes were corrupt and casting a vote for them means the three 'Apad' (trouble-makers) would facilitate the return of corruption, violence and "cadre raj" in Tripura.

He said for 25 years Tripura was under the Cadre-rule of the Left parties. "The CPM forged an alliance with the Congress, which means that they have conceded defeat to the BJP. The Left party has realised that they could not defeat the BJP. During the Left government, hundreds of Congress workers were murdered. Despite this, the Congress has forged an alliance with the Left." He said the Communists have become extinct in the entire world and the Congress is "finished in the country".

Without naming CPM state secretary Jitendra Chowdhury, Shah claimed that the Left betrayed and deprived the tribals of Tripura for long and is now projecting a tribal leader as the chief ministerial face in the elections to "dupe" people. Chowdhury, a CPM central committee member, is contesting the elections from Sabroom constituency in south Tripura.