Three more MLAs will be inducted in the State Cabinet and the newly inducted MLAs will take oath at Raj Bhavan on Tuesday. According to official sources, the swearing in ceremony will start at 3pm.
On Monday, local media was abuzz with speculations on expansion of cabinet soon after Party’s Central leadership and Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Pratima Bhowmik arrived in the city today.
However, official notification regarding the cabinet expansion was not issued till the last information came in.
According to highly placed sources, the three MLAs who have made it to the State Council of Ministers are Ram Prasad Paul, Sushanta Chowdhury and Bhagaban Das.
Out of three MLAs, two – Ramprasad Paul and Sushanta Chowdhury are from the West Tripura District while Bhagaban Das is from the Unakoti district.
Induction of new faces in cabinet obviously indicates reshuffling of several portfolios.
Since the BJP-IPFT government was formed in Tripura in 2018, three berths in the State cabinet were lying vacant. The number of vacant ministerial berth increased to four after Sudip Roy Barman was dropped from the council of ministers. Even after the elevation of three new MLAs, one berth in the cabinet will remain vacant.
Apart from Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, the other members of the Tripura cabinet are- Jishnu Dev Verma (Deputy Chief Minister), N.C. Debbarma, Ratanlal Nath, Pranajit Singha Roy, Manoj Kanti Deb, Santana Chakma and Mevar Kumar Jamatia.
Earlier, Four central leaders of BJP including BJP national secretary Dilip Saikia, BJP North East Zonal secretary (organization) Ajay Jamwal, the party’s Tripura unit prabhari Vinod Sonkar and general secretary (Organization) Phanindranath Sarma arrived here in the state on Monday in a four-day trip to strengthen the party’s organizational base.
The leaders took part in the core committee meeting today. Union Minister of State from Tripura Pratima Bhowmik also arrived here and joined the meeting. Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, State BJP president Dr Manik Saha and other senior State leaders also participated in the meeting to discuss important organizational matters.