BJP buying voters in Tripura: CPI-M

Agartala, Aug 1: The BJP is giving away electronic gadgets to voters in Tripura before the assembly polls, a CPI-M leader alleged, a charge denied by the BJP.

"To oust the Left parties from power in Tripura, the BJP has been plotting various conspiracies. The saffron party is trying to buy voters by giving electronic gadgets like mobiles and computers, as also two-wheelers, to them before the assembly elections," Communist Party of India-Marxist Tripura State Secretary Bijan Dhar told the media on Monday evening.

"The BJP-led government at the Centre and various states are involved in many corruption cases and scams," he added.

In a two-day state committee meeting here on July 30-31, the CPI-M discussed the decisions of the three-day party central committee meeting held in New Delhi on July 24-26. The meetings also discussed the next assembly polls in Tripura.

Tripura, one of the two states (including Kerala) where the CPI-M-led Left Front is in power along with other Left parties, goes to polls in February next year.

Dhar, also a member of the CPI-M central committee member, said the BJP governments have been posting RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) men in important places including Rashtrapati Bhavan, Election Commission and Army.

The Left leader, accompanied by another CPI-M central committee member Gautam Das, said that the party would launch a two-week campaign from August 15 to highlight six-point demands that include waiving of farmers' loans, enactment of right to sale of foodgrains in minimum support price rate and to provide jobs to the unemployed youth.

The Bharatiya Janata Party refuted the allegations and said Tripura's voters are "very much conscious, they are unpurchasable".

"We are not giving any electronic gadgets to anyone. Only motorbikes are given to BJP activists for organisational work. Such motorbikes are given to party members in other states too," Tripura BJP spokesman Mrinal Kanti Deb said.