An MLA of the ruling BJP in Tripura quit the Assembly and the party on Wednesday — the fifth legislator to do so in the poll-bound state since 2021. Diba Chandra Hrangkhawl, 66, was a four-time MLA.
He had won on a BJP ticket from the Karamcharra constituency in 2018 after quitting the Congress. Hrangkhawl’s resignation has taken the number of MLAs to have quit the ruling BJP-IPFT coalition in Tripura to eight.
While the BJP lost its fifth MLA since 2021, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) has seen three of its MLAs joining the Tipra Motha, a regional party which has emerged as a key player in the polls to be held early next year.
Although Hrangkhawl did not disclose his plans or mentioned the reason for quitting the BJP with immediate effect in his one-line resignation letter, Congress insiders said the seasoned tribal leader would return to the party on Thursday.
After submitting his resignation papers, Hrangkhawl said he had quit owing to “personal” reasons and he and the BJP had worked for the people but he was “not satisfied”. Before Hrangkhawl, Burba Mohan Tripura, Ashis Das, Sudip Roy Barman and Ashish Kumar Saha had quit the BJP and the Assembly since 2021.
The MLAs who quit the IPFT were Dhananjoy Tripura, Brishaketu Debbarma and former minister Mevar Kumar Jamatia.
Tripura state BJP president Rajib Bhattacharjee told The Telegraph that the tribal leader’s departure would not affect the party’s prospects in the polls. “He has not been effective. He won the last elections in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modiji,” Bhattacharjee said.
The state BJP chief said he might have left after sensing it would be difficult to get himself renominated from his constituency.
If Hrangkhawl joins the Congress as widely expected, he will be the third BJP MLA to have done so this year. The strength of the BJP in the Assembly is now 34while that of the IPFT is five, more than the majority mark of 29 in the 56-member Assembly. The BJP-IPFT combine had won 43 of the 60 seats in the 2018 polls, ending the Left Front’s uninterrupted 25-yearreign. It added one more seat later where polls were countermanded. Despite the desertions, the BJP won three of the four Assembly seats in the bypolls held in June.
