GUWAHATI: Tripura BJP chief and recently-elected Rajya Sabha member Manik Saha will be the new Tripura chief minister.
He was elected the BJP legislature party leader on Saturday evening, hours after Biplab Kumar Deb’s resignation from the post. The developments come just months ahead of Assembly elections.
Saha, the 67-year-old dentist-turned-politician, was elected to Rajya Sabha on March 31. He took over as the state BJP chief last year and is a confidant of Deb.
Earlier in the day, accompanied by party leaders Bhupender Yadav and Vinod Tawde, Deb went to Raj Bhawan and submitted his resignation letter to Governor Satyadev Narain Arya.
He told journalists he had stepped down in the interest of the party and considering the Assembly elections.
"I tried to perform whatever responsibility the party had given me with outmost sincerity and honesty. The party now wants me to work for the organisation and I will do it," Deb said.
He also said that he had tried his best to undertake developmental and welfare activities for Tripura's all-round development.
Later, he tweeted, "I thank Central leadership & people of Tripura for giving me the responsibility to serve Tripura as a Chief Minister. I have wholeheartedly served my State & will always work for the betterment of my State. Tripura shall definitely march ahead in the path of devt. Jai Hind."
BJP sources said a section of ministers and party MLAs had been livid with Deb for the past two years for his alleged autocratic style of functioning. He allegedly gave no freedom to the ministers and the MLAs to take decisions independently.
The problem started in 2019 when he sacked Health Minister Sudip Roy Barman. Barman was the first to raise the banner of revolt against Deb along with eight-ten MLAs. They had met the party’s central leaders several times and apprised them of how Deb was running the government.
In due course, three MLAs ditched the BJP with Barman going to the Congress where he had started his political career from. Several other MLAs had also petitioned the party's central leadership against Deb.
The BJP sources said the party's central leadership was not happy over the manner in which Deb was running the government that saw people started reposing their faith again to the Left parties, which ruled the state for 25 years until being ousted in 2018, and the Trinamool Congress which is trying to make inroads into the state.
Sensing that going to elections with Deb in the top post might drive people further away from the BJP, its central leaders decided to throw their weight behind Saha who has a fairly clean image.
The Trinamool was quick to react.
"Goodbye and good riddance to the CM who failed thousands of people in #Tripura! Enough damage done. So much so that even the top bosses at @BJP4India are fed up of his INCOMPETENCE. Folks at BJP seem very rattled by what @AITCofficial achieved in the state. CHANGE IS INEVITABLE," the party tweeted.
During the first two years of his chief ministership, Deb had embarrassed the BJP with several bizarre remarks.
In 2018, he had set tongues wagging by claiming that Internet and satellites existed since the time of the Mahabharata and that ducks raise the level of oxygen in water bodies when they swim. He had also said that only civil engineers should sit for civil services exams.