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Journalism of Courage
Before the BJP picked Manik Saha to return as the chief minister for a second term, Assam Chief Minister and North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) head Himanta Biswa Sarma visited Tripura Sunday and held meetings with the Saha and senior party colleagues on the possible formation of the next cabinet. Party sources said Sarma also met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi later in the day over the composition of the cabinet and its leader, to ensure a smooth transition.
Saha, who steered the BJP to victory in the recently concluded Assembly polls, was 10 months ago unexpectedly chosen as replacement for CM Biplab Deb, who, after four years at the helm, was seen to have lost the faith of the central leadership over worsening law and order.
But since the results of the election, which was fought on the promise of a second double-engine “Modi-Manik Sarkar”, there was talk that Union Minister of State Pratima Bhoumik, who fought and won in the recent Assembly elections, could replace Saha. Not unlike how 10 months ago, Saha himself had left many party old-timers in the state disappointed, when he was pichforked from relative obscurity to the CM’s chair and given the responsibility of steering the party into the Assembly polls.
But after winning the prestigious Town Bardowali seat — an upscale locality on the outskirts of state capital Agartala — by beating veteran Ashish Saha of the Congress by 1,257 votes, and leading the BJP to a simple majority in the Assembly, his claim to the hot seat could not, perhaps, be denied. It is a turnaround of dreams for the 69-year-old “gentleman politician”, a practising doctor who continues to lend his professional expertise during difficult dental surgeries.
Himself an unassuming Biplab Deb loyalist, Saha had joined the BJP only in 2016 — a fact that has remained a cause of heartburn among many BJP leaders in Tripura. His rise through the ranks, though, has been spectacular. From 2018, when he was the Tripura head of “prishta pramukhs”, who act as pivots in the BJP’s relentless electoral machinery, he became the president of the cash-rich Tripura Cricket Association in 2019, courtesy the BJP dispensation.
When the BJP central leadership sought to rein in CM Deb by using the “one man one post” rule to replace him as the Tripura BJP president in January 2020 (while he remained the CM), Saha was catapulted to the role, before being elected to the Rajya Sabha in March 2022 — the first BJP leader from the state in the Upper House of Parliament.
But that stint was destined to be a short one. By 2021, the party was seeing Saha as the man needed for a quick fix in the state. And so, when in May 2022 — just 10 months before the 2023 Assembly polls — the party sought to replace Deb as CM, the choice was obvious.
Observers say that in the short period he has been in power, Saha has shown signs of shedding the reticence earlier associated with him. He has also come into his own vis-a-vis former CM Deb, long seen as his patron. While Saha was not directly named for the CM post by the BJP, their campaign mostly focused on him, seeking a second term for “Modi-Manik Sarkar”.
Now, having led the BJP to victory within 10 months of being made the CM, he may have finally shut the mouths of detractors and cemented his place as the unquestioned BJP leader in the state.
