Tripura Chief Minister Inducts Rivals To State Cabinet Seeking To Stem Dissent

Biplab Kumar Deb, heading the first BJP government in Tripura, expanded his cabinet Tuesday with the induction of three ministers, including two from the rival camp, as the BJP braces itself for the 2023 Assembly elections.

Two of the three new faces - Ramprasad Paul and Sushanta Chowdhury - are from the dissident camp led by former health minister Sudip Roy Burman.

Governor Satyadev Narayan Arya administered the oath of office and secrecy to Ramprasad Paul, Sushanta Chowdhury, and Bhagban Das at the Raj Bhavan. Portfolios are yet to be allotted to the newly-inducted ministers.

With the expansion of the state cabinet - the first time in over three years - Tripura now has 11 ministers.

Under the rules based on the strength of the Legislative Assembly, Tripura can have 11 ministers. The state has a 60-member assembly and the BJP, in a surprise performance, had won 36 of the 59 seats, clinching nearly 43% of the votes in 2018. The Left Front, which ruled the state for decades, managed to win only 16 seats, marking a gigantic shift in the political landscape of the state.

Sudip Roy Burman, former state Congress president, who had joined the BJP before the 2018 election, led a group of five BJP MLAs in a virtual revolt and said last Sunday that they have identified certain "mistakes" of the Biplab Deb government about which they will inform the BJP central leadership.

Mr Burman, who joined the TMC in 2016 and shifted to the BJP in 2017, was rewarded with a ministerial berth but was later dropped for alleged anti-party activities.

He also led a delegation of MLAs for a meeting with BJP president JP Nadda in New Delhi and claimed the Biplab Deb government was plagued by "bad governance", which could lead to the party's defeat in the 2023 polls.

"I am not in touch with them and none of them has contacted us. I am comfortable where I am," Mr Burman said tersely when asked about the possibility of his return to the TMC. Speculation is rife about his joining Mamata Banerjee's party.

With his party in Tripura in turmoil, JP Nadda dispatched a host of BJP leaders including national general secretary Dilip Saikia, BJP North-East zonal secretary (Organisation) Ajay Jamwal, Tripura in-charge Vinod Sonkar, and general secretary (Organisation) Phanindranath Sarma to Agartala on Monday.

The leaders went into a huddle with the party's core committee members including the chief minister, his deputy Jishnu Devbarma, state BJP president Manik Saha and union minister Pratima Bhowmik, in an apparent effort to stem dissent.

Fresh from an astounding victory in West Bengal, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee has sent her party leaders, including Lok Sabha MP and nephew Abhishek Banerjee to fish in the troubled waters of Tripura which has a large Bengali speaking population.

Several middle and small-level BJP leaders quickly shed their newly acquired Hindu right leanings and embraced the TMC, prompting the BJP leadership to sit up and take notice.

The phenomenal rise of the newly formed Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance of Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma, the scion of the erstwhile royal family of the state, which mauled the BJP and its allies in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections held in April, became an added concern for the BJP.

The area under TTAADC comprises two-third of the state's territory and is the home to tribals, who constitute one-third of Tripura's population.

Although Mr Debbarma, former Tripura Congress chief, quit the Congress, he was critical of his cousin - Jyotiraditya Scindia - joining the BJP.