Former Tripura CM Manik Sarkar will continue to enjoy govt facilities: Council of ministers

AGARTALA: The council of ministers of the BJP government in Tripura in a meeting on Thursday endorsed the facilities and privileges of former chief minister Manik Sarkar equivalent to the rank of a cabinet minister.
In the past five years, Sarkar was the leader of the opposition but in the just-concluded assembly election, he did not contest. The previous government had provided him with a duplex bungalow next to the CM’s house with all support staff, security and an SUV vehicle after he requested the then chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb as leader of the opposition.
However, in the polls, CPM came a third with 11 MLAs in the 60-member house and lost the status of the main opposition party.The regional party, Tipra Motha, was accorded the status of principal opposition and its senior-most MLA Animesh Debbarma became leader of the opposition.
According to parliamentary affairs minister Ratan Lal Nath, Manik Sarkar wrote to CM Manik Saha requesting him if he could retain his bungalow, vehicle, security and staff with all other existing facilities and privileges as he doesn’t have any house to stay.
“The CM put the letter in the cabinet meeting and we honoured Sarkar’s demands and he will continue to enjoy all the facilities and privileges like earlier. There is a provision for providing only a government accommodation to the former chief minister of Tripura with a house guard,” Nath stated.
However, CPM in a statement clarified that Sarkar wrote to the CM according to the provisions of the Salaries and Allowances of Ministers (Tripura) Act, 1972, which says the person who had held the office of the chief minister for a period of four years or more shall be entitled without any payment of rent to the use and maintenance of an unfurnished residence throughout his lifetime.