Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb has resigned from his post one year ahead of the north-eastern state’s scheduled assembly polls. Deb made the announcement after meeting the Governor.
The state unit of the BJP has long been grappling with severe infighting triggering speculations that Deb may be forced to quit his post.
Speaking to reports, Deb said that he needed to ‘work on grassroots level in various sectors’ to strengthen the base of BJP in the state ahead of the elections.
“I need to I should work as a common Karyakarta (party worker) rather than being in the position of CM to form BJP govt again in the coming Assembly elections,” Deb was quoted by news agency ANI as saying.
Taking a dig at Deb’s resignation, Trinamool Congress said that the BJP top leadership was ‘rattled’ by the rise of Mamata Banerjee’s party in the state.
The TMC tweeted, “Goodbye & good riddance to the CM who failed thousands of people in #Tripura! Enough damage done. So much so that even the top bosses at @BJP4India are fed up of his INCOMPETENCE. Folks at BJP seem very rattled by what @AITCofficial achieved in the state. CHANGE IS INEVITABLE.”
Deb had earned notoriety for his bizarre claims soon after he became one of the youngest chief ministers in India. Last year, he said how Home Minister Amit Shah had once told him about his plans to expand the BJP to neighbouring countries such as Nepal and Sri Lanka. This had angered Nepal, which had registered an official protest to India.
In one of his speeches, Deb had claimed that the internet and satellite existed even during the Mahabharat period, which is a legendary narrative of the Kurukṣetra War, believed to have been fought somewhere in the 8th and 9th century BC. Biplab, which in Bengali means revolution, had become an object of ridicule even by his own supporters.
On another occasion, he had slammed former Miss World Diana Hayden, who won the coveted beauty title in 1997. Questioning the rationale behind crowning Diana as the Miss World, Deb had said that she wasn’t the face of Indian beauty, but Aishwarya Rai was. Many had detected bigotry in Deb’s statement since Diana was Christian and Aishwarya was a Hindu.
