Agartala, Feb 8: Dissident Tripura MLAs of the ruling BJP — Sudip Roy Barman and Ashis Kumar Saha, who after criticising Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb resigned from the Assembly and the party on Monday, Joined the Congress in New Delhi on Tuesday.

AICC in-charge for Tripura, Nagaland and Sikkim Ajoy Kumar in his separate tweets said that Roy Barman and Saha joined the Congress in presence of party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.

Tripura Pradesh Congress President Birajit Sinha and former state President Gopal Roy and other leaders including Ajoy Kumar were also present in the joining ceremony at the residence of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Delhi.

More than 5 BJP MLAs to join Congress after March 

Meanwhile, Sinha said the BJP MLAs who are intending to join the Congress would have to complete certain organisational and technical matters before joining the Congress. He also stated that besides the BJP MLAs, a large number of saffron party leaders and workers would also join the Congress as everyone is disillusioned with the BJP.

“The BJP government led by Deb utterly failed to deliver the goods. An autocratic rule has been prevailing in the state. A reign of terror has been going on in the state. People are in serious distress. We want to work for the people as we are unable to do this while remaining in the BJP,” added Roy Barman.

Roy Barman and Saha were earlier in Congress before joining Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2016 and then to BJP next year (2017).

Earlier, BJP MLA Ashish Das after openly criticising the saffron party and its leadership including Chief Minister, joined the TMC on October 31, 2021 following which he was disqualified from Tripura Assembly by Speaker Ratan Chakraborty on January 5, 2022.

Two other BJP MLAs — Diba Chandra Hrangkhawl and Burba Mohan Tripura – also went to Delhi on Monday along with Roy Barman and Saha but their political positions are not yet officially announced.

BJP, on the other hand, downplayed the resignations of Roy Barman and Saha and said that their quitting from the Assembly membership would not be any constitutional crisis in the state.

State BJP spokesman Nabendu Bhattacharjee said that it was in the expected line that Roy Barman and Saha left from the Assembly membership and the party.

“They have been openly criticising the chief minister and other party leaders. Their resignation from the Assembly and the party has no importance to BJP,” Bhattacharjee told the media.

Long running infighting in Tripura BJP 

Roy Barman and Saha and three other BJP MLAs — Ashish Das, Diba Chandra Hrangkhawl and Burba Mohan Tripura — in August last year held a big gathering in Agartala which was attended by many local BJP leaders and workers.

Roy Barman, Saha and few other BJP MLAs and leaders for the past more than two years met BJP’s National President J.P. Nadda and other central leaders and Ministers and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and apprised them about the “mis-governance in Tripura and Chief Minister’s authoritarian style of work”.

To curb the rebellion in the party organisation and to set the governance right, several central party leaders led by BJP’s North East Zonal Secretary (Organisation), Ajay Jamwal, has visited the state several times.

In the presence of the central party leaders, three BJP MLAs — Ram Prasad Paul, Sushanta Chowdhury, Bhagaban Chandra Das — were on August 31 last year inducted into the Tripura cabinet in its first cabinet expansion after the BJP-IPFT (Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura) alliance assumed charge in March 2018.

The open dissent and internal dispute in the ruling BJP began after Roy Barman, who was holding the Health and Information Technology departments, was sacked in May 2019 following differences with Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb.

The BJP in alliance with the tribal based party IPFT (Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura) came to power in Tripura in March, 2018, after defeating the CPI (M)-led Left Front for the first time in 25 years after the latter first came to power in the northeastern state in 1978 along with West Bengal and again in 1993 (after a gap of five years – 1988-1993, when Congress-led coalition government governed the state).

The IPFT with eight MLAS is an ally of the ruling BJP, who secured 36 seats in the 60-member Assembly in the 2018 elections while remaining 16 seats bagged by the CPI-M.