Agartala: The former Chief Minister of Tripura Biplab Kumar Deb who was elected in the lone Rajya Sabha seat last week became emotional on Monday on his last day of the current assembly while shaking hands with his main rival Sudip Roybarman and political opponent Manik Sarkar.
The 12th assembly in Tripura was constituted on Sept 15, 2018, with Biplab Deb as Chief Minister along with 35 MLAs of BJP and eight MLAs of its alliance partner IPFT.
Deb was replaced by Dr Manik Saha on May 15 this year as Chief Minister and Biplab became an MLA of the Banamalipur constituency of Agartala.
After four months, BJP nominated Biplab Kumar Deb as a candidate for the Rajya Sabha by-poll in Tripura, which had fallen vacant with the resignation of Dr Saha after becoming CM.
Biplab Kumar Deb didn’t attend the first day of the monsoon session of the Tripura assembly as a member and on Monday shortly after the beginning of the house, Deb joined the session.
After question hour, Deb stood up and while expressing his gratitude to the members of the assembly including the members of the opposition his tears rolled down, which made the house emotional for a moment.
Deb in a folded hand said, “I have been elected as leader of the house with the grace of God and the support of you all, and now you have selected me to represent Tripura in the upper house of the parliament.”
“On the first day when I sat in the chair of Chief Minister – it was an ever cherishing memory for me. All of you especially the leader of the opposition and former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and my senior colleague Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma and Sudip Roybarman (who was a minister in Deb’s cabinet but now the only MLA of Congress) guided me to become a parliamentarian,” Biplab uttered in an emotional voice.
He added, “Since Rajya Sabha has only one member from our state, I shall be happy to represent Tripura in the parliament in a meaningful way and if anybody cutting across party lines feels the necessity of my intervention at the central level will benefit the state – I am committed to doing it for my beloved state from which I started my journey in parliamentary politics.”
He came down in the well and shook hands with his political rival Sudip Roybarman and sought his support, which was almost an exceptional event in the assembly.
Roybarman was removed from the cabinet by Biplab Kumar Deb and thereafter for three years despite being in the same party they had been the rival of each other.
Roybarman along with another BJP MLA Ashis Kumar Saha resigned from assembly membership and primary membership of BJP alleging a series of allegations against Biplab Kumar Deb.
Though Ashis Saha couldn’t win the by-election to present CM Manik Saha, Roybarman won the by-poll as Congress nominee in July this year.
