Agartala, March 16: The 13 newly-elected Congress legislators in Tripura will participate in the opening session of the Assembly without a legislature party leader. The leader of the Opposition in the last Assembly, Jawhar Saha, failed to make the cut in the just-concluded elections. In the present set up, there are at least four contenders for the post of legislature party leader. They are former chief minister and leader of the Opposition Samir Ranjan Barman, Dipak Roy, Sudip Roy-Barman and former PCC president Gopal Roy.
Sources said Samir Ranjan Barman was the front-runner for the post, but would find it difficult to clinch it because of lack of acceptability and squabbles with PCC president Birajit Sinha.
They said the Congress high command had made it clear that the MLAs were free to elect whomever they preferred. But on all earlier occasions, the high command had to intervene to nominate a leader not only for the legislature party but also for the PCC. Sinha has called a meeting of the legislature party on March 18 to discuss the party’s strategy for the opening session of the new Assembly, slated to begin on March 20.