Tripura ex-minister Billal Miah joins BJP, says saffron party gives more space to Muslims than Cong 

After joining the BJP, Miah said he had to leave the Congress since the grand party had “forgotten Muslims and the common people”.

“People from the Hindu community also love me very much…. I was elected several times (from Boxanagar constituency),” Miah, 63, said. “The Congress has forgotten about Muslims.”

The expulsion letter, issued by state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha, came shortly after Miah resigned from all positions in the party through a letter to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.

A two-term MLA, Miah was a minister in the Congress-Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti (TUJS) coalition that governed the state between 1988 and 1993.

Miah said he had served in different political and administrative positions in the Congress but left it to “show the path of mukti (freedom) to the people”. Stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantra of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas is “the only way to freedom”, Miah mentioned that the Tripura CM had not even joined politics when he began his political innings but they have always shared a cordial relationship.

Miah accused the state Congress leadership of acting like the Left and said he did not want to be in a party that wants to do “politics of compromise” with the CPI(M), a party whose workers, he alleged, had assaulted and killed many Congress leaders during the Left’s long stint in the state.

In an oblique reference to the TIPRA Motha, a party formed in 2019 by former Congress leader Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma, Billal Miah said he didn’t want to join a “regional” political force since regional politics has always been, and still is, in a crisis in Tripura. That is why, he reasoned, he chose to be a part of BJP, a “national political party”, not unlike his former party — the Congress.

On opposition parties’ criticism of the BJP’s “anti-minority policies”, Miah said, “The CPI(M) and the Congress say the BJP is a communal party. I want to ask (them): why did the BJP give two seats to Muslim candidates in the Assembly elections earlier this year, the same as the CPI(M), and the Congress didn’t give a ticket to a single Muslim candidate.”

The Congress-turned-BJP leader exhorted people to vote for BJP candidates in both seats going to the by-elections in Tripura and urged them to ensure the CPI(M) loses security deposit in both seats.

At the event, Saha said he is “very happy” that Billal Miah has joined the BJP and called him a loyalist of former Chief Minister and late Congress leader Sudhir Ranjan Majumder. “He (Billal Miah) stayed with Sudhir-babu until his death. Now he has said he will stay with us. The Congress is getting eroded slowly. One day, there will be no one left with the Congress,” the Chief Minister said.

Saha expressed hope that people will vote for both Tofajjal Hossain and Bindu Debnath, the BJP’s candidates for Boxanagar and Dhanpur Assembly segments, respectively, in the upcoming bypolls.

Miah began his political life with the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the Congress party’s students’ wing, in 1979. He first became an MLA after winning the Boxanagar seat in 1988 and was appointed Minister of State for Agriculture, Fishery and Animal Resources.

He was later elevated to a full minister and given charge of Animal Resources, Labour and Employment in 1991, towards the end of Congress-led coalition government’s tenure in the state.

Miah was elected the second time from Boxanagar in 1998 Assembly polls.

During his long stint with the Congress, Miah had been the party’s state unit general secretary, its vice-president, and working president. He was also associated with the party’s frontal organisations such as Youth Congress, minority department, among others.