Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura

Tripura BJP MLA Ratan Chakraborty has been elected as the 14th speaker of the state legislative assembly on Friday.

Deputy Speaker Biswabandhu Sen began the election of the speaker at the beginning of the 10th session of the 12th Assembly on Friday and declared Ratan Chakraborty as the unopposed candidate in the election.

Deputy speaker Biswabandhu said that three proposals have been submitted for the election of the Speaker. The first proposal was made by chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and revenue minister NC Debbarma. The second was by deputy chief minister and finance minister Jishnu Dev Varma. The proposal was supported by tribal welfare Minister Mevar Kumar Jamatia. The third proposal was made by parliamentary affairs minister Ratan Lal Nath with Chief Whip of the Treasury benches Kalyani Roy seconding the proposal.

Following the custom, the chief minister, deputy chief minister and members of the cabinet and the treasury bench accompanied the newly elected speaker to his seat.

After being elected as the Speaker, Ratan Chakraborty thanked all the members of the legislative assembly. He also sought the cooperation of treasury and opposition benches in the assembly.

It is worthy to mention here that Speaker Ratan Chakraborty has been on the constitutional post after 27 years while elected as an MLA after 20 years in Tripura. He was a former minister in the Congress-led government (1988-1993) in Tripura.

Congratulating Ratan Chakraborty on taking charge as the new Speaker of the Tripura legislative assembly, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said “Your experience in parliamentary politics will enrich the Tripura assembly”.