Agartala: Inner conflict in Tripura BJP has taken the worst turn on Thursday after a senior BJP legislator Arun Chandra Bhowmik in public demanded the removal of Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath and initiated a CBI inquiry into his assets and property.
Angry with the response of the Education Minister, Bhowmik said, “In the last four and half-year Ratan Lal Nath has destroyed the backbone of the education system in Tripura and installed a corrupt administration in the department. The teachers and officers of the state have lost interest in serving the department because of the minister.”
“I lodged a complaint against Ratan Lal Nath with Chief Minister Dr. Manik Saha seeking his removal and if requires I shall go to Delhi for his exclusion from the cabinet and to institute an inquiry into his corruption,” Bhowmik told media adding that Nath doesn’t have any quality to be a minister and his activities are solely responsible for making BJP-IPFT government unpopular in Tripura.
Bhowmik, a senior advocate of the Northeastern region has been in politics for the last 50 years and had fought many elections including several Loksabha from Trinamool Congress but managed to win the 2018 assembly election from the Belonia constituency of South Tripura with a BJP ticket.
He alleged that schools and colleges of South Tripura have been suffering from a basic academic environment because of the unscientific transfer policy and whimsical decisions of the education minister and added, “Every now and then teachers are transferred from one place to another without assessing the ground situation and recently, sole teachers of Physics and Education have been withdrawn from Belonia College.”
“I phoned him on Thursday requesting to cancel the transfer order of both the College teachers until now posting because it will hamper the students and also create a bad impact on the ruling party, as the election is approaching. Ratan Lal Nath shouted at me and abused me, which was not intended from a minister to a senior legislator. He treated me like his subordinate and misbehaved,” Bhowmik alleged.
He further stated that the BJP-IPFT government came to power with the popular mandate in 2018 but now it becomes ostracize due to the ministers and leaders like Ratan Lal Nath and said, “I have no hesitation to confess, CPI-M ruled the state for 25 years because of former Chief Minister Samir Ranjan Barman and Ratan Lal Nath. Nath joined BJP to become a minister for some purposes and he achieved it. Time has come to expose such people.”
