The prime minister assured help from the centre for development in the state at the swearing-in ceremony of the first BJP-government in Tripura.
Agartala: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday assured full support from the Centre to Tripura for the state’s all-round development Friday.
Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony of the new BJP government in the state, Modi said that Tripura had lagged behind in progress but would now get the backing of the Centre to explore its potential and opportunities.
“I want to assure that in Tripura’s march towards development, the central government will provide full cooperation with the motto of cooperative federalism,” he said.
Biplab Kumar Deb, the new chief minister, was sworn in along with eight other ministers at the Assam Rifles ground in Agartala.
Modi said that there are only a few victories that will be recalled and cited as examples for ages, and winning Tripura by defeating the Left, after its 25-year incumbent rule, will be one such event.
The prime minister stressed that the Left and the Right should work together in the state.
“Members in the opposition are mature and experienced whereas we have a new fresh and young team in Tripura who has dreams to work for the welfare of Tripura. I hope both of you will work towards a better Tripura,” he said.
The prime minister started his address in Kokborok, a tribal language, and ended his speech in Bengali in an attempt to reach the audience.
The BJP government has toppled the 25-year rule of CPI(M) in the state and the swearing-in ceremony was attended by many BJP heavy-weights like Amit Shah, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, senior BJP leaders Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.
Sources said that the presence of Advani and Joshi created a buzz and was significant as they wanted to celebrate the victory of saffron ideology over the losing Left government.
“Advani and Joshi were invited as Tripura is a big ideological victory for BJP. Presence of these stalwarts reiterated the importance of the winning,” said a senior BJP leader.
Interestingly BJP’s Ram Madhav had also invited former Tripura CM Manik Sarkar to the ceremony. Sarkar attended the event but left before the Prime Minister’s speech.
Out of three northeast states that BJP won in, it was Tripura’s swearing-in ceremony that witnessed most of the top leadership turning up for it.
Only a few BJP leaders turned up for oath-taking ceremony in Nagaland and Meghalaya.
In Tripura, chief ministers of BJP ruled states like Vijay Rupani (Gujarat), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Sarbananda Sonowal (Assam), Raghubar Das (Jharkhand) attended the function as well.
Tripura state in-charge Sunil Deodhar and Neiphiu Rio were also present.
The Nagaland swearing-in ceremony of CM Neiphiu Rio was attended by Amit Shah and other ministers from the northeast. While Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma’s ceremony saw Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah in attendance.
With inputs from PTI