Tripura Assembly Speaker disqualifies IPFT MLA a year after he resigned

Speaking to the media at the state assembly, Speaker Ratan Chakraborty said the decision was reached after a series of hearings was conducted to give the disqualified legislator a chance to explain his part. IPFT had alleged that he had resigned to reduce the strength of IPFT in the House and weaken the BJP-IPFT government.

“We don’t want any elected member to be disqualified from the assembly. So, we wanted him to have a chance to explain but he stayed absent in all the hearings and claimed in a letter that he didn’t violate any rule of the IPFT. This created a technical issue, which had to be cleared through several hearings,” the Speaker said.

A series of dates were fixed for the hearing — October 2021 and January, February this year. The final date of hearing was fixed on September 19, when Brishaketu was absent again, as on the previous dates.

The order to disqualify the MLA comes to effect immediately. The Speaker’s decision was communicated to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

On what does the disqualification mean for Brishaketu, the Speaker said, “He (Brishaketu) won’t be able to contest in any election, including by-elections, within what’s left of the ongoing five-year tenure which ends next March.”

On whether he would be allowed to contest the next assembly election, the Speaker said the decision to disqualify Brishaketu was informed to the ECI and they will take a call on the future course of action.

Brishaketu, who won from the Simna assembly constituency in West Tripura on an IPFT ticket had resigned from his post citing personal reasons through a letter sent to the assembly Speaker on June 29 last year.

IPFT jointly contested the Tripura Assembly polls in 2018 and formed the government with 44 seats in the 60-member assembly. This includes eight seats from the tribal partner and 36 seats from BJP.

Forty months after he was elected, the 45-year-old lawyer-turned-legislator tendered his resignation to Assembly Speaker Rebati Mohan Das. “… due to some personal reason, I am tendering my resignation as MLA from the said Assembly constituency; in this regard I would like to request you kindly to consider my this letter as resignation letter,” Brishaketu wrote in his letter to the Speaker, without specifying any political reason behind his decision.

IPFT supremo and tribal veteran N C Debbarma later wrote to the Assembly on July 3 seeking his disqualification.

After considering allegations of disobeying the party whip in the recently-held Rajya Sabha polls, joining a different political party amidst his MLAship, being involved in anti-IPFT activities etc and Brishaketu’s claims of not having broken any rules, the Speaker Tuesday disqualified him saying documents, video and photo evidences submitted against him clearly prove he had disobeyed the party whip and violated several norms.

IPFT’s strength in the assembly has effectively dropped to seven with Brishaketu’s departure while the actual strength is rumoured to be one further below as former minister Mevar Kumar Jamatia, who was dropped from the cabinet out of rivalry with IPFT chief N C Debbarma earlier this year, has been entirely silent and inactive. The IPFT had written to the state assembly to drop him from the House allegedly due to anti-party activities. Mevar hasn’t been disqualified from the assembly yet.