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Agartala, Sep. 23 (IANS): BJP MLA and veteran tribal leader Burba Mohan Tripura on Friday resigned from the Tripura Assembly and to join the tribal-based Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance party.
Official sources said that the 67-year-old legislator, accompanied by TIPRA supremo and former royal scion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman, submitted his resignation letter to Speaker Ratan Chakraborty, who immediately accepted it.
Deb Barman told IANS that Burba Mohan Tripura, along with senior BJP leader and former Deputy Speaker Gauri Sankar Reang, joined his party late on Friday evening.
Burba Mohan Tripura, who was unavailable for comments, was elected to the Assembly in the 2018 election from the tribal reserved seat Karbook in southern Tripura's Gomati district.
BJP leaders, when contacted by IANS, refused to make any comments immediately.
"The matter relating to Burba Mohan Tripura is being looked after by the senior party leaders," BJP spokesman Nabendu Bhattacharjee said.
Burba Mohan Tripura is the fourth BJP MLA to quit the Assembly since last year. Earlier Ashis Das, Sudip Roy Barman and Ashis Kumar Saha also quit the party and the Assembly membership after open differences with then Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, who resigned from the top post on May 14 following the instructions of the party's Central leadership.
Das joined the Trinamool Congress last year and quit the party in May this year while Roy Barman, also a former BJP Minister, and Saha joined the Congress in February this year.
Roy Barman was re-elected to the state Assembly for the sixth time in the bypoll in June on a Congress ticket.
Meanwhile, BJP's ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) MLA Brishaketu Debbarma also resigned from the Assembly in June last year and joined the TIPRA reducing the party's (IPFT) strength to seven.
After Burba Mohan Tripura's resignation, BJP's strength has reduced to 35 in the 60-member Assembly.