Manik Sarkar is an Indian communist politician who served as the Chief Minister of Tripura from March 1998 to March 2018. He is a Politburo Member of the

Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxist–Leninist communist political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in terms of membership and electoral seats and one of the na ...

. In March 2008, he was sworn in as leader of Left Front, the Tripura coalition government. In assembly elections held in 2013, he became the chief minister for the fourth consecutive time. Currently, he serves as the Leader of Opposition in

Tripura Legislative Assembly The Tripura Legislative Assembly or Tripura Vidhan Sabha is the unicameral legislature of the Indian state of Tripura, with 60 Members of the Legislative Assembly. The present Assembly is located in Gurkhabasti. Ujjayanta Palace in Agartala ...

. His

affidavit An ( ; Medieval Latin for "he has declared under oath") is a written statement voluntarily made by an ''affiant'' or '' deponent'' under an oath or affirmation which is administered by a person who is authorized to do so by law. Such a stateme ...

for the 2018 Tripura Assembly election revealed that he is the chief minister with the least possessions among all his

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in India.

Early life and background

Manik Sarkar was born into a middle-class family. His father, Amulya Sarkar, worked as a tailor, while his mother, Anjali Sarkar, was a State and later Provincial

government employee The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

. Sarkar became active in student movements in his student days, and in 1968, at the age of 19, he became a member of the

. He was a candidate of the Students' Federation of India throughout his academic life at MBB College, from where he graduated with a B. Com. degree. During his first year at the college there came the turbulent times of the food movement of 1967, campaigning against the policy of the then Congress government of Tripura, and Sarkar threw himself headlong into the related student struggle. His vigorous role in this mass movement led him to join the Communists. Due to his early political exposure, he also became the General Secretary of the MBB College Student Union and was also made the Vice President of the Students' Federation of India. In 1972, at the early age of 23, he joined the State Committee of the

Political career

Six years after being selected in the CPI (M) State Committee, Sarkar was included in the party state

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in the year 1978. This was also the year when the first Left Front government had taken control in

Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the ea ...

. In 1980, at the age of 31, he was elected as the

Member of the Legislative Assembly A member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to a legislative assembly. Most often, the term refers to a subnational assembly such as that of a state, province, or territory of a country. ...

from the Agartala constituency. This was the start of Manik Sarkar's leadership in his state. At around the same time, he was appointed the Chief Whip of the CPI (M). His success as the

returned in 1983, when he was elected to the Assembly from Krishnanagar, Agartala. When the Left Front government took control in 1993, Sarkar was appointed the State Secretary of the CPI (M). The biggest success came to Sarkar in 1998. At the age of 49, he became a member of the politburo of the CPI (M), which is the principal policy-making and executive committee in a Communist party. In the same year, he became the

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

of the state of

. Since then, he was elected to the same position four consecutive times in 20 years. He is one of the very few chief Ministers in India who was in the office for so long. His party lost majority in the 2018 elections and he had to step down as a result.

Personal life

Sarkar is married to Panchali Bhattacharya, who was employed with the Central Social Welfare Board till she retired in 2011. Sarkar and his wife live a very simple life. Sarkar is the only Indian

who does not own a personal car or a home. He chooses to live in an old and a very small house that belonged to his great grandfather. He used to donate his entire salary that he received as a

to his party and in return, got 10,000 (approximately US$155) per month as allowance.

Controversy

* According to Tripura education minister Ratan Lal Nath, former chief minister Manik Sarkar genuinely took on the role of a whistleblower in the Rs 640 crore PWD fraud investigation that resulted in the indictment of numerous officials including former PWD minister Badal Choudhury. * Manik Sarkar of Tripura, who holds the title of "poorest Chief Minister" of India, may once more experience sleepless nights as a result of the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) arrest of Bengali actor-turned-Trinamool lawmaker Tapas Pal on Friday for his alleged connections with the multi-billion-dollar ponzi scheme of firm Rose Valley. Rose Valley was originally based in the northeastern state.

References

External links