Janjivan Bureau / Agartala : Tripura BJP president and newly-elected MLA Biplab Kumar Deb was today unanimously elected leader of the BJP legislature party in the state, Union minister Nitin Gadkari announced.
Deb, whose name was proposed by party MLA Sudip Roy Burman in the meeting, will be the new chief minister of Tripura, Gadkari said.
BJP’s poll ally, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura, has demanded that the chief minister be from the tribal community.
Gadkari, deputed as observer by BJP president Amit Shah, said BJP MLA Jishnu Debbarma will be the deputy chief minister.
Deb will stake claim to form government in the state before Governor Tathagata Roy. No MLA of the IPFT was present in the meeting.
The IPFT had yesterday threatened not to join the government if the party was not given “respectable positions” in the ministry. It would support the government from outside if its conditions were not met, it said.
The BJP and the IPFT swept to power in the state, winning 43 seats in the 60-member assembly. BJP bagged 35 seats and the IPFT eight.
Elections were held for 59 seats of the 60-member assembly on February 18. Polling was countermanded in one seat due to death of a CPI(M) candidate.
Know about Biplav Kumar Dev
Biplab Kumar Deb was appointed as the state president for the BJP on January 7, 2016, and contested elections from Banamalipur Constituency in Agartala, in which he contested against Indian National Congress MLA Gopal Roy. Another opponent of his during the Assembly elections was CPI(M) youth leader Amol Chokroborty.
As per reports, in the run-up to the Assembly elections in February 2018, Deb led door-to-door campaigns for the party, along with veteran leader Sunil Deodhar, in a bid to put up a formidable fight against the CPI(M) that had made Tripura its bastion since the last 25 years.
Born in Kakraben, Udaipur in present-day Tripura, Deb completed his schooling and higher education from the same state before moving out to Delhi for a brief period of time, during which he worked as a professional gym instructor. He later returned to Tripura after a gap of 15 years. He was a former volunteer of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Kumar has previously campaigned in elections to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council.
Ahead of the Assembly election results, Deb had told Janjivan.com, “People want change. People strongly wish for a BJP government in Tripura. It is certain that the BJP will form the next government in Tripura. During the election campaign, we have witnessed that the people become fanatic to become free from the misrule of the Left government.”
During the course of the campaigning, Deb had praised the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had even stated that he considers him as a political guru.
