Two MLAs from the ruling BJP in Tripura – Sudip Roy Barman and Ashish Kumar Saha – resigned from the Assembly as well as from the primary membership of the saffron party on Monday saying democracy is at stake in the state under the BJP.
Former health minister in the Biplab Kumar Deb cabinet and five-term MLA Roy Barman, who was dropped from his portfolio in 2019, and Saha submitted their resignation papers to Speaker Ratan Chakraborty and said they would end the “conspiracy” to suppress the voice of the public by threatening them under the current regime.
Their resignation comes months after BJP MLA Ashish Kumar Das left the party alleging misrule and joined the Trinamool Congress.
Emerging from the Assembly this afternoon, Roy Barman told reporters, “We have heaved a sigh of relief that we resigned, because this government has miserably failed to deliver, live up to expectations. In this government, only one man’s voice is heard or his orders are carried out. No legislature, no minister can exercise their authority or power. Their orders are not being carried out. A reign of terror has been let loose across the state. Democracy has been throttled”.
“It’s crystal clear now that these people have fooled the people of the state and their intention is not to deliver goods but to loot money,” the former minister stated.
He said that the peoples’ voice and voices of media were “suppressed, tortured and oppressed” under the BJP rule and said, “Now it’s our duty to revive democracy in the state and ensure that all the democratic institutions run according to the Constitution”.
He alleged that all promises made by the BJP prior to the 2018 Assembly elections were “hollow” and said that those who fought for the party four years ago tried hard to fulfil peoples’ expectations, but the reality is nowhere close to the target and, instead, people are getting insulted.
Saha said both of them resigned from the Assembly as well as the party and will head to Delhi later in the day.
Both legislators have been critical of the Chief Minister for the last few years and have been touring the state to meet anti-Left political activists in all districts. In 2020, Roy Barman and five other MLAs with him, who switched over to the BJP from the Trinamool Congress in 2017, visited Delhi to meet party president J P Nadda. The MLAs later denied that the visit was part of an effort to overthrow Biplab Deb as Chief Minister.