• Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura 

Agartala: August 11, 2022 : Claiming BJP and Congress as two sides of the same coin, former Chief Minister and incumbent leader of opposition of Tripura, Manik Sarkar on Wednesday said that the dream of freedom has not been achieved even after 75 years of India’s independence.

Commemorating the occasion of India’s 75th year of Independence, the Tribal Students’ Union (TSU), Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Tribal Youth Federation (TYF) and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) organized a seminar at Agartala Town Hall.

Addressing the gathering, Sarkar said “Congress came to power for the first time after the independence of the country. It would be wrong to say that nothing happened in the country during the Congress period. During the Congress period, electricity production increased, mills were built, and road ghats were built. But the basic needs of the people in the country have not been solved. If these problems were solved, the country would be prosperous. That is, the main goals and objectives of the freedom struggle were not implemented during the Congress government. It is class rule, the Congress government has worked in the country for a long time to protect the interests of the exploiters. And from there BJP came to power.”

Leader opposition opined that what the Congress government has done for the benefit of the exploiters, the BJP government is also doing the same. He said “BJP was established in the country in 1980, then there was no party called BJP before India’s independence. Today they are proud of the freedom movement. And the BJP led by RSS licked the feet of the British during the freedom movement, backstabbing the freedom movement and betraying the countrymen.”

“And they are now saying that they have to prove whether Muslims, Christians and communists had a role in the freedom movement. But people from all sections including Muslim, Christian, Communists’ have left an exemplary history for this freedom movement, now BJP-RSS is raising questions about them. But in this way, BJP is trying to distort the freedom movement”, Sarkar told the gathering.

Former CM also strongly condemned that the BJP is trying to change the constitution and re-write a new constitution. Criticizing the Congress and the BJP governments, he said that even after 75 years of independence, the youths are not getting any of the opportunities they deserve in the field of work and education. One of the main goals of the freedom movement was to create a country free of illiteracy. But it appears that during the Congress government, very little money was allocated to the Education sector, and even after the BJP government came to power, it is following the same path.

As a result, he expressed the opinion that the country has not made much progress in the field of education. He also said that youths are losing their enthusiasm to work during the tenure of this government. Youngsters do not know how to survive. And now a particular aspect is price rise, the way the prices of goods are increasing, people’s lives are becoming miserable. And BJP is trying to create recent divisions so that people cannot protest against them. The dream of independence will not be realized if the BJP government is in power like this for a long time.

Opposition leader Sarkar opined that the new generation should play an important role against this government. Leaders of DYFI, TYF, SFI and TSU were also present in the organized seminar.