INDIA
Manik Saha, who led BJP to victory, is a dental surgeon who joined the BJP in 2016 after quitting Congress. He was made party chief of the state in 2020 and elected to Rajya Sabha in March 2022. He was BJP MP until the change of guard took place last year.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manik Saha, a dentist-turned-politician who steered the party to power in Tripura, will be taking oath as the Chief Minister of the state for the second consecutive term today. The oath ceremony will take place at Vivekananda Maidan in Agartala, and will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief JP Nadda, and several CMs of BJP-ruled states.
Manik Saha, who led BJP to victory, is a dental surgeon who joined the BJP in 2016 after quitting Congress. He was made party chief of the state in 2020 and elected to Rajya Sabha in March 2022. He was BJP MP until the change of guard took place last year. In 2022, Saha replaced Biplab Kumar Deb to steer the party in the Assembly polls amid a multi-cornered contest in the northeast state.
Earlier on Monday, Chief Minister-designate Manik Saha called on Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya to stake claim to form the government in the Northeast state. On Monday, there was a general meeting of all the newly elected BJP MLAs who unanimously proposed the name of Manik Saha for the leader of the legislature party.
BJP returned to power in the state by winning an absolute majority. According to the Election Commission of India, BJP won 32 seats with a vote share of around 39 percent. Tipra Motha Party came second by winning 13 seats. Communist Party of India (Marxist) got 11 seats while Congress bagged three seats.
In the 60-member Tripura assembly, the majority mark is 31. The BJP, which had never won a single seat in Tripura before 2018, stormed to power in the last election in alliance with IPFT and ousted the Left Front which had been in power in the border state for 35 years since 1978.