AGARTALA: Suspense prevailed over the BJP’s choice of chief minister in Tripura three days after the party returned to power in the state by a slender margin on Thursday even as the swearing-in has been scheduled for March 8, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected to attend.
The 60-seat assembly went to the polls on February 16 and the results came out on March 2. The BJP won 32 seats, leaving one to its ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) while the TIPRA Motha, a regional party, emerged as the main Opposition by securing 13 seats and the CP(M)-Congress combine got 11 and 3 seats respectively.
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A day after the victory, chief minister Manik Saha tendered his resignation to governor Satyadeo Narain Arya but did not stake claim to forming the next government.
“I submitted my resignation to Governor Arya. He accepted my resignation and asked me to continue as chief minister till the new government is formed,” said Saha.
Once known as former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb’s close aide, Saha was named as the new chief minister of the state last year, replacing Deb who ascended to the post in 2018. He was a Rajya Sabha parliamentarian when he was elected as leader of the BJP legislative party.
After Deb’s resignation a year before the state assembly polls, Saha defeated Congress leader Asish Kumar Saha by 6,104 votes in the Town Bardowali seat in an assembly by-poll held in June last year.
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Besides Saha, Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment Pratima Bhoumik, who won from Dhanpur constituency, the home turf of former chief minister and CP(M) veteran Manik Sarkar, for the first time, is also seen as a strong contender for the CM’s post.
Bhoumik was the first permanent resident of the state to become a Union minister in 2021, two years after she became a Lok Sabha MP.
She was associated with the BJP since 1991 after which she got membership of the party’s state committee and later became chief of the party’s Dhanpur mandal.
She held the post of vice-president of the party for two terms. Later, in 2016, she got the responsibility of general secretary of the party. Bhoumik contested assembly elections from the Dhanpur seat twice against the longest serving former chief minister Manik Sarkar in 1998 and 2018 but lost both times.
“The name of the chief minister will be announced from Delhi. The schedule of the announcement is not known yet,” said a BJP leader, who requested not to be named.
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