Agartala: Hours after the central leadership cancelled Biplab Deb’s public meeting to check his popularity, Deb met with party loyalists at his official residence on Wednesday.
BJP lawmakers, including deputy chief minister Jishnu Dev Varma, education minister Ratan Lal Nath, transport minister Pranajit Singha Roy, food minister Manoj Kanti Deb, and social welfare and social education minister Santana Chakma were among the MLAs who met with the chief minister and assured their support to his leadership.
Earlier, state in-charge Vinod Kumar Sonkar had said that there was no need for the people to decide on whether Tripura’s chief minister will remain in office. Biplab Kumar Deb will continue to serve the people of Tripura and leave the party’s internal problems to the party high command.
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“Any problem should be left to the party high command to resolve. There are no differences in the organisation in Tripura. The family is big, but the party will listen to everyone,” Sonkar said.
He also said that the Biplab Kumar Deb had talked to national president JP Nadda about taking the verdict of the people on the post of chief minister following which the decision was taken.
Transport Minister Pranajit Singh Roy has made it clear that he has full confidence in the chief minister because he doubted whether those who chanted slogans last Sunday were BJP workers at all.
Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath said they have met the chief minister after hearing his announcement on Tuesday. However, it was not possible for me to bring the essence of the meeting publicly.
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He has made it clear that Biplab Kumar Deb is their leader, adding, “We have chosen him as the leader. In the history of Tripura, I have not seen a chief minister with a positive outlook like Biplab Deb. He made it clear in his announcement that he is not greedy for the post of chief minister. On the contrary, that bold decision showed his simplicity”, Nath added.
Meanwhile, a section of MLAs including the former health minister Sudip Roy Barman, Ram Prasad Paul, Asish Kumar Saha, Asish Das, Sushanta Chowdhury who have been labeled as dissidents did not attend the meeting in chief minister’s residence on Wednesday.
Barman, who is also the son of former chief minister Samir Ranjan Barman, had joined the BJP party in June, 2017 when BJP leaving Trinomool Congress along with seven other MLAs.
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He was one of the biggest name and reason which helped the BJP defeat the 25 year old left front government in the 2018 general assembly elections.
Barman was the health minister in the present BJP-IPFT government. However, he was removed from the cabinet after 2019 Lok Sabha elections over differences in opinion with the chief minister.
The present BJP-IPFT government has a total of 44 MLAs, of which 36 are from BJP and 8 from ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), while CPIM managed to get 14 seats in the 60 member’s Tripura legislative assembly.
