NEW DELHI, May 14: Manik Saha, the president of the BJP Tripura unit, was on Saturday elected the new chief minister of the state to succeed Biplab Kumar Deb who stepped down earlier during the day at the order of the party high command.
Saha, a dentist and the lone Rajya Sabha MP from Tripura, was elected as legislature party leader at a meeting held at the Chief Minister’s official residence. Senior BJP leaders Bhupender Yadav and Vinod Tawde were present as observers at the meeting. After being named the next Chief Minister of the State, Saha told reporters that he “was a common worker of the party and will continue to be so.” Tripura is slated to go to Assembly elections in 2023.
Deb has now become the fifth Chief Minister to be replaced in a BJP-ruled State ahead of the respective state Assembly elections after BS Yeddiyurappa n in Karnataka, Trivendra Singh and Tirath Singh Rawat in Uttarakhand, and Vijay Rupani in Gujarat. Deb had been appointed the Chief Minister after the BJP stormed to power in 2018, ending 25 years of Left Front rule in the State.
According to senior party sources, the quick change in leadership in BJP-ruled States, especially with Assembly polls round the corner, shows the long shadow of the party’s defeat in Jharkhand being cast on the continuation of CMs. “Earlier, the high command was conservative in terms of changing Chief Ministers, but it cost the BJP the State of Jharkhand, where internal strife did it in in 2019,” said a senior party leader.
The Tripura unit was also facing discord with Deb’s growing unpopularity as CM. “Tripura is important in ideological terms as the BJP defeated the Left there, a first for it. This has been brewing for a while,” the source said. Deb said with the 2023 Assembly election approaching, the party had decided to give him organisational responsibilities as it wanted a responsible organiser to take charge of the State’s affairs. “Because a government can only be formed if the organisation is strong,” he said.
The legislature party meeting had witnessed a scuffle among MLAs after Minister Ram Prasad Paul voiced his protests when Deb proposed Saha’s name to succeed him. Paul broke a few chairs before the situation was brought under control, party sources said. Paul wanted Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma, a member of the erstwhile Tripura royal family, to be named the next Chief Minister.
(Manas Dasgupta)
