• Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura 

Agartala, February 20, 2022 : A group of 15 leaders hailing from Tripura Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including a minister from state cabinet on February 16 wrote a letter to Dr Manik Saha – the incumbent president of the ruling political party in Tripura, demanding his resignation from the existing post.

The undersigned leaders are – Tapas Bhattacharya, Swapan Adhikari, Manik Das, Ranjan Sinha, Sujit Kumar Banerjee, Prabir Kumar Nag, Ranjan Kumar Deb, Gouranga Pal, Arun Majumder, Tulsi Banik, Narayan Chandra Shil, Pradyot Kumar Dhar, Hiralal Bhowmik, Mintu Sarkar, Nani Gopal Deb, and minister Ram Prasad Paul.

In the letter, the 15 leaders including a minister of state cabinet mentioned “We all state level senior leaders of BJP those who spent almost 30 years with this organization awfully sorry to inform you in your last 26 months as a president of Tripura Pradesh BJP, party has not only severely suffered in almost every Mandal of the state. But moral of the karyakartas and elected government bodies such as Panchayat members, MLA’s right-mindedness has gone down to such low that they even don’t bother to leave their official posts and leaving our party. But astonishingly, till December 2019, not only party has won Tripura assembly election 2018 and comfortably we won parliament election in May 2019 and also achieved victory in the by-election at Badharghat assembly constituency in August, 2019.”

“But after you became President in January 2020 in almost every Mandal parallel organization running between two fraction groups of BJP and it is a matter of shame that police intervene in many cases to stop BJP’s in fighting in the public. Things have become so worst because hardly you have visited the mandals and districts personally in last 26 months to evaluate why things are going wrong and neither offered any solution to solve those issues,” the statement reads.

They said “Under your leadership probably it is the only state in India where ruling party within three years lost autonomous district Council (ADC) election in April 2021. That to an opposition party which formed in February, 2021. Neither had you taken any initiative to protect your people not to join that new party TIPRA MOTHA nor after election result, you have taken any initiative to save our karyakartas who beaten badly by TIPRA MOTHA and destroyed properties of BJP karyakartas in almost 70% of the total area of the Tripura which comes under ADC. As a result, they are living in a state of fear in a regular basis and now compelled to join the TIPRA MOTHA party by leaving BJP which will impact severely in coming election not only in 20 ST seats also 17 SC and general seats.”

“As you have never worked in ground level politically neither you have any experience to work as office bearer like state general secretary or state vice-president nor you are an elected member of any electoral body like MLA or Councillor. Somehow by some unknown reason, you have become the president directly to a world largest organization party, BJP by violating all organization constitution where it is clearly mentioned nobody can become president without direct office-bearer experience of at least 10 years, but still obeying our central leaders instruction we tried to cooperate you. But you have never shown any respect to us nor taken our advice to develop our organisation rather sidelined us but still we offered cooperation to you many times”, they added.

“Manik ji you are holding two posts at a time- President of Tripura Cricket Association along with holding a political post of Tripura Pradesh BJP President. Thus both the posts according to the law of the land are illegal and you are doing injustice to both the posts and ruining both the organizations drastically in the last 26 months.”

“Manik ji now 3 elections are due within 10 months- Village Council election, By-election in many constituencies and Complete Assembly Election 2023.”

The leaders including minister told incumbent BJP president of Tripura that “Please vacate your chair now for larger interest and help BJP to develop organization and win every election of Tripura by vacating your post and help a new competent experienced person to take over as BJP Tripura President in this critical hour. Remember, without any proper election by depriving competent and experienced capable senior leaders, the BJP party selected you as Tripura president when you were already holding the post of Tripura cricket president.”

They further added “Manik Saha ji now please step down from the president post and return the cost of the ‘Milk of Mother BJP’ who has fed you for the last 26 months. ‘Let Us Together Work For BJP’ to win in coming elections”.