Agartala, March 20: The Tripura Assembly, whose opening session commenced today, elected former handloom and handicrafts minister and sitting CPM legislator from Dharmanagar subdivision of North Tripura, Ramendra Debnath, as its new Speaker by a majority vote.
The treasury benches had submitted the name of Debnath through party MLA Manoranjan Debbarma to pro tem Speaker Samir Deb Sarkar before the session began at 11 am. The Opposition Congress-INPT combine submitted two separate proposals for electing Congress MLA Kajal Das as the Speaker. The proposals were supported and seconded by four Congress-INPT legislators — Birajit Sinha, Shyamacharan Tripura, Ratanlal Nath and Prakash Das.
When the session started, Sarkar announced that he had received separate proposals for electing Debnath and Das as Speaker. He first asked the treasury bench to stand up in support of the candidature of Debnath. All 40 legislators of the Left Front in the 60-member House, except the pro tem Speaker himself, stood up in support and a count was taken by the Assembly secretary.
At this stage, INPT Legislature Party leader Shyamacharan Tripura stood up and told the pro tem Speaker that since a clear two-third majority had supported Debnath as Speaker, there was no need to put to vote the motion brought in by the Opposition proposing Congress MLA Kajal Das as Speaker.
Sarkar did not press the issue and the new Speaker was conducted to the podium and chair by the leader of the House and chief minister Manik Sarkar and by senior Congress MLAs Ashok Bhattacharya and Shyamacharan Tripura. Later in a brief speech, Tripura offered the Opposition’s constructive co-operation to the Speaker in running the House.