AGARTALA: Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Biswa Bandhu Sen was elected the Speaker of the Tripura assembly on Friday, March 24, defeating opposition CPI-M-Congress joint candidate Gopal Chandra Roy.
Sen, a septuagenarian former Congressman who is now a BJP leader, received 32 votes, while Roy, one of the three Congressmen, received 14.
Just prior to the start of the Speaker's election, the 13-member assembly's tribal-based Tipra Motha Party (TMP) left the chamber to voice their displeasure with the seating arrangements.
As one of Roy's proposers, TMP supremo Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman already pledged to support the joint CPI-M-Congress nominee. Debbarma is also the current leader of the opposition and heads the party's legislature.
Amit Shah, the union home minister, informed Deb Barman on Thursday that the centre would appoint a mediator by March 27 to look into "constitutional solutions" to the TMP's demands for increased autonomy and the socioeconomic advancement of the tribal people, who make up one-third of Tripura's four million populations.
Political circles claim that the TMP leader changed his position on the Speaker's elections as a result of Shah's phone call and Deb Barman's subsequent meeting with Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Sen, a four-term member of the legislature from the North Tripura district's Dharmanagar since 2008, served as deputy speaker of the previous assembly.
In the 60-member Tripura assembly elections held on February 16, the BJP won 32 seats, while its ally the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) received one seat, the opposition CPI-M managed to win 11 seats, and the Congress took home three seats.
Later, Union Minister of State Pratima Bhowmik left the house. Bhowmik was elected to the Tripura assembly last month from the Dhanpur assembly constituency.
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