Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb’s appeal to the public to gather at Swami Vivekananda ground in Agartala on December 13 and share their opinion on whether he should continue in his post is not happening.
Deb had made the announcement at a news meet in Agartala on Tuesday in response to Sunday’s sloganeering — Biplab hatao, BJP bachao (Remove Biplab, save BJP)” and Biplab hatao, Tripura bachao (Remove Biplab, save Tripura) — by a section of BJP supporters in front of party observer Vinod Sonkar in the Tripura capital.
“If they want me to leave, I will inform the party leadership and leave. I will abide by the people’s wish. I request everyone to come and share their opinion on December 13,” Deb had said
That the proposed public meeting, which made the national headlines, would not be happening was disclosed by deputy chief minister Jishnu Dev Varma on Thursday afternoon.
Sources said BJP MLAs and ministers had been meeting Deb since Tuesday night urging him to reconsider his decision. They even conveyed their mind to the national president J.P. Nadda and Sonkar. Both directed him to cancel the meeting as internal issues of the party would be settled internally.
“The party leadership has asked him not to hold the public rally. Party MLAs and leaders too have requested him not to go ahead with the rally and he has accepted our request. As such the public meeting stands cancelled,” Varma said, adding that the party will look into Sunday’s anti-CM sloganeering.
Before the sloganeering in front of Sonkar, a group of rebel BJP legislators had visited Delhi reportedly seeking a change of guard because of Deb’s style of functioning, a move the MLAs subsequently denied.
The BJP had stormed to power with its ally, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), in 2018 by winning 44 out of 60 seats in the Assembly polls and ending 25 years of Left rule in Tripura. The IPFT has eight MLAs.
Sources said IPFT leaders were unhappy with the move because the coalition government was “unnecessarily dragged” into the BJP’s internal affairs.
