It was otherwise a quiet year for the northeastern state.
Young sportswomen Dipa Karmakar and Laxita Reang made Tripura proud in 2016 which was otherwise a quiet year for the northeastern state. On the political front, Opposition Congress suffered a jolt, when six of its MLAs defected to Trinamool Congress in May though they have been allowed to keep their membership of the state assembly.
Sudip Roy Barman, Ashish Saha, Biwabandhu Sen, Diba Chandra Hrangkhawl and Pranjit Singha Roy and Dilip Sarkar resigned in protest against Congress's alliance with Left parties for the West Bengal assembly elections. Speaker Ramendra Debnath took opinion of legal experts and said the MLAs do not come under anti-defection act and so their membership of the state assembly is valid. The ruling CPI(M), which is at the helm of affairs for the past 23 years, consolidated its base by winning bypolls for Amarpur, Barjala and Khowai assembly constituencies.
BJP, which has no electoral presence in the assembly, managed to secure second positions in two seats. In a significant development, North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) started commercial production from its Monarchak power plant in Sepahijala district. The plant has been producing 101 MW from January.
Tripura got another university -- Maharaja Bir Bikram University -- in August. Tripura's last king Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur (1923-1947) had set up the state's first degree college in his name in 1947 and had a plan to set up an university in that premise. 23-year-old Dipa became the first woman gymnast from India to qualify for the Olympics and vaulted into the finals before failing to reach the medals podium by a whisker. But by executing one of the most hazardous feats in gymnastics -- the Produnova vault -- she won a millions hearts.
After Dipa's feat, 15-year-old Laxmita from a remote tribal hamlet in North Tripura district made the state proud by representing the country in the Asia Cup under-16 women championship in China. The class IX student of Dasharath Deb state sports school kept goal for the team that lost in the quarter-finals. In the match against Malaysia which India won 3-1, Laxmita also saved a penalty.
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 "dipa karmakar, Laxita Reang, Gymnastics, Football, Bharatiya Janata Part (BJP), congress, Tripura, agartala, asia, china, khowai")
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