Anurag Thakur campaigns for Raju Bista

Anurag Thakur highlighted the vast economic potential of north Bengal, especially in terms of cross-border trade, agriculture, and tourism and explained how the Trinamool Congress had kept the region deprived.

RAJESH SHARMA, EOI, JAIGAON, APRIL 15, 2024 : BJP candidate for Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat Raju Bista along with Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur had an interactive session with representatives of various social and cultural organisations, sports clubs and youth organisations, business and traders associations, representatives of NGOs and prominent citizens from Siliguri.

Anurag Thakur highlighted the vast economic potential of north Bengal, especially in terms of cross-border trade, agriculture, and tourism and explained how the Trinamool Congress had kept the region deprived.

He spoke about the massive corruptions under the Trinamool government and the arrest of a number of anti-national elements in West Bengal. Underlining the efforts of the Centre to ensure faster development of north Bengal, he narrated how top priority had been given to infrastructure building in the past five years. 

He mentioned the expansion in rail network, modernizing Bagdogra Airport, expansion of highways, elevated corridors, and rural road network which were the parts of a master plan of the Centre for the development of north Bengal.

The Kurseong station of All India Radio had been upgraded to a hub of Nepali language programmes in India. The infrastructure projects included the construction of National Highway 717A to Kalimpong and Gangtok, the Sevoke – Rangpo railway project, the Siliguri Ring Road, the expansion of the Bagdora airport, the Balason– Sevoke Elevated Highway Corridor, the alternative to the Coronation Bridge, the Siliguri – Gorakhpur Expressway and the setting up of Eklavya Model Residential School in Kalimpong and an ESI Hospital for tea garden and cinchona plantation workers that was coming up in Siliguri.