Former Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee president and incumbent MLA Birajit Sinha is reportedly waiting for the right moment to quit Congress after allegedly sending his supporters to the saffron party. The dissident leader has not been actively involved in Congress programmes for months after he was replaced by Asish Kumar Saha, a close aide of former Health Minister Sudip Roy Barman, last year.
Mr. Sinha is not publicly critical of the Saha-Barman duo, but is allegedly engineering defections in the state Congress. Scores of leaders and workers from PCC(I), Youth Congress, and NSUI joined the BJP over the past week.
Those who switched sides, including former State General Secretary Jaidul Hussain and Samrat Roy, joined the BJP known as supporters of Birajit Sinha, who represents Kailashahar in north Tripura as an MLA for the 6th term. After joining, the turncoats lashed out at Sudip Roy Bartender and Asish Kumar Saha, holding them responsible for the erosion of the party.
In the last Assembly election, Congress, which contested in alliance with the CPI(M), won three seats from its allotted quota of 14 candidates. The remaining two MLAs are Sudip Roy Bartender and Gopal Roy, a veteran politician.
In politics, Birajit Sinha had been close to Congress deserter Ghulam Nabi Azad and he rose to prominence when Azad was the national president of Youth Congress.
Mr. Sinha is tight-lipped and is avoiding speaking to the media about his next course of action. He is not even attending party programmes or visiting the party office.
Facing exodus, the State Congress leadership is trying to manage things in their favour ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The party is holding a day-long workshop for all organization office bearers at the Town Hall here on Wednesday.
“Some important central leaders, including Alka Lamba, will be attending the event. This is the first of our envisaged organisation programmes in the State,” PCC president Asish Kumar Saha said.
