NewDelhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manik Saha on Wednesday (March 8, 2023) took oath as chief minister of Tripura for a second term. Eight more ministers, including Ratan Lal Nath, Pranajit Singha Roy, Santana Chakma, Tinku Roy and Bikash Debbarma, were also sworn in by Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president JP Nadda, and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma were among the dignitaries who attended the oath-taking ceremony.
In all, eight ministers from the BJP and one from its ally IPFT were inducted into the cabinet. Of these, five were new faces, while four ministers who were in the earlier cabinet found a place in the new line-up.
The BJP won 32 seats in the 60-member House in the recently held Tripura Assembly elections, while its ally IPFT managed to secure one seat.
This was reportedly the first time that any anti-Left government has retained power in Tripura in the past three decades.
In 1988, the Congress-TUJS defeated the Left in the border state and formed the government, but it lost to the Communists in 1993.
Manik Saha had been made chief minister earlier in 2022, replacing Biplab Kumar Deb, in a brand renewal exercise after it was found that his popularity rating was plummeting on account of the poor law and order situation in Tripura’s hinterland.
Manik Saha, former Congress leader, won 2023 Tripura Assembly Election by 1,257 votes
Manik Saha, the former Congress leader who joined the BJP half-a-dozen years back, defeated his former party’s veteran leader Ashish Kumar Saha, by a margin of 1,257 votes from Town Bardowali in the 2023 Tripura Assembly Election.
He had only 10 months as the chief minister of the northeastern state after replacing Deb but managed to lift the state government’s image before the February 16 assembly polls.
Before joining politics, Saha used to teach at Tripura Medical College located in Hapania.
From Saha joining the saffron party in 2016 to being made a chief minister in a brand renewal exercise last year, it has been a short but upward journey for the 70-year-old dental surgeon-turned-politician.
Bureau Report
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