BJP CENTRAL LEADERS MEET ‘REBEL’ MLAS

For dissident leaders planning to quit the party and join Trinamool Congress in Tripura, Central leadership of the BJP are visiting Tripura. BJP’s national General Secretary BL Santosh and Tripura in-charge Vinod Sonkar are arriving in the state on a two-day visit, while Tripura and Assam’s organisational secretary Phanindra Nath Sarma already arrived in Agartala on Tuesday afternoon

According to sources, the dissident faction of MLAs now become reluctant to continue in BJP, apprehending the failure to repair the damage being done in three and half years by team Biplab Kumar Deb, as Tripura is going to poll barely after one and half years.

However, on arrival B L Santosh led team held a discussion on the organisational issue with the party office bearers and chiefs of frontal organisations at party headquarters. The party sources said that the Santosh-led team might have a separate meeting with dissident MLAs to find their suggestions for resolving the impending crisis of state BJP and in the government.

The BJP in the state has been facing an acute crisis due to severe dissidence against Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb for the last one and half years. Earlier in October, four BJP legislators — Asish Kumar Saha, Sushanta Chowdhury, and Parimal Debbarma besides Paul had met the BJP chief in Delhi seeking removal of Deb as the CM.

Mukul Roy, former national vice-president of BJP, was responsible for switching Sudip Roy Barman and his loyalists to the saffron party after quitting Trinamool in 2016. However, after his exit from the party, the national leadership is now concerned about losing ground in Tripura.

Legislator Sudip, who had criticised the CM on several occasions before being axed as the health minister in June. He is considered the leader of the dissident group. The former Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee president Sudip had joined the saffron party in 2017. After the BJP-IPFT came to power in the state, Sudip became the Health Minister but he was removed from his ministerial position in June last year, and the CM kept the portfolio with him.

Sudip had openly criticised the health department for “mismanagement” at the GB Pant Hospital, a state-run facility for treatment of coronavirus patients. He was booked in an FIR for allegedly paying “an unauthorised visit” to a Covid Care Centre in Agartala.

The team will hold a discussion with senior leaders of RSS in its office followed by a meeting with ministers again. Then they will hold meetings with party core committee members and separate meetings with the party president and General Secretary (organisation).