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Journalism of Courage
Of the two Lok Sabha constituencies in Tripura, the seat of West Tripura that votes in the first phase on April 19 will see a high-voltage clash between former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha.
Deb was an RSS worker, spending time at various organisational levels. He returned to Tripura in 2015, when he was put in charge of the Mahasampark Abhiyan that the BJP undertook in the state after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to increase party membership. A year later, he was appointed the president of the party’s Tripura unit. Building a strong base for the party and connecting with grassroots workers, Deb spearheaded a campaign that brought the curtains down on 25 years of Left Front rule and ended Manik Sarkar’s four-term stint as chief minister.
The 2018 Assembly polls marked a turning point in Tripura politics. Of the 59 constituencies, the BJP and its ally, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), won 43 seats. The BJP’s vote share shot up from 1.54% in 2013 to over 43% in 2018. The victory was attributed to Deb and he went on to become CM. In the 2019 polls, the BJP’s Pratima Bhowmik won the seat by defeating the Congress’s Subal Bhowmik by 30,5689 votes. Previously, in 2014, Sankar Prasad Datta of the CPM won over the Congress’ Arunoday Saha by 50,3486 votes.
Deb’s tenure was marked with tensions. In 2021, then BJP MLA Sudip Roy Barman led a group of MLAs to meet the central leadership in Delhi and demanded Deb’s removal as CM, saying he was “dictatorial, inexperienced and unpopular”. But the BJP leadership stood by Deb, refusing to give in to the demand. Some of these MLAs joined the Deb camp while Barman left to join the Congress.
The last straw came when Deb, at a public meeting, declared he would seek the people’s “mandate” on whether he should continue in office in the face of intense factionalism in the state unit. In 2022, a year before the Assembly polls, the BJP replaced Deb with Manik Saha. Deb was then appointed BJP in-charge of Haryana. The same month, he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
Deb will take on state Congress chief Saha who was incidentally one of the MLAs from the Barman camp who rebelled against Deb.
Saha won the 2013 Assembly polls on a Congress ticket from Bardowali. He shifted to the Trinamool Congress in 2016 and a year later, switched to the BJP. He won the 2018 Assembly polls from Bardowali on a BJP ticket. Ahead of the Assembly polls last year, he returned to the Congress, alleging “factionalism” within the BJP.
In the 2023 Assembly polls, he contested against CM Manik Saha but lost. He was subsequently appointed state Congress president, replacing Birajit Sinha. Both the BJP and the Congress claim they have the upper hand, citing public support and turnout in rallies.
Despite not being active in the Tripura political landscape, Deb continues to be a popular figure and the BJP has been conducting door-to-door campaigning to capitalise on the popularity of Deb. The Congress is mostly reaching out to its supporters alongside its INDIA ally CPI(M). The two parties have been targeting Deb over his exit as CM. “How can someone who failed to run the state government can be elected as MP for the central government? BJP should clarify why they dropped him first,” Saha said at a recent campaign event.
