Highlighting the Centre’s development push for the Northeast, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the region 51 times during the last eight years and has put an end to the feeling of alienation that had grown in the Northeast.
Shah was on a visit to Tripura to hold election rallies ahead of the assembly polls in the state.
In an exclusive interview with news agency, the Union Home Minister said, “After PM Modi came to power, we have done a lot of things to change the entire Northeast. The first thing is that there is peace in the Northeast today. There were numerous militant organisations. We have finalised agreements with many such organisations.”
The Home Minister said nearly 40,000 families of the Bru and Reang communities had been living in Tripura for over 25 years in inhuman conditions and had been allowed to settle only after the BJP government came into power.
“Agreements were signed with the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) here also. Nearly over 8,000 armed cadres have surrendered their arms and opted to join the mainstream. The northeast was earlier known for blockades, bandhs, bomb explosions and insurgency. Today roads are being built there, a railway network is about to reach all the states and airports have been built in all the states of the region,” he said.
Shah said the BJP government is now building a second airport in Tripura, a state that till now had only one airport.
He lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for undertaking various developmental projects for the development of the Northeast.
Shah said, “Prime Minister himself has visited the Northeast 51 times during the last eight years. Since Independence, no prime minister has come here so frequently. It has been made compulsory for at least one union minister to visit the region every 15 days. Besides this, the distribution of free rice has been done since the COVID times. If any region has benefitted the most in terms of percentage of the population, it is the Northeast. PM Modi has provided houses to the poor of the Northeast.”
Asked about BJP’s poll prospects in the northeastern states where identity politics is prevalent, Shah said a false narrative against BJP was being spread that the region will lose its identity and cultural heritage if the party came to power.
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