Biplab Kumar Deb: From gym instructor to Tripura’s new chief minister

Biplab Kumar Deb worked as a professional gym instructor in Delhi when he shifted to the national capital about 15 years ago for higher studies, and has also been an RSS volunteer

Biplab Kumar Deb, the chief minister-designate of Tripura, has been a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh volunteer and has also worked as a gym instructor in Delhi.

Tripura’s CM-designate Biplab Kumar Deb with BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav. (PTI file photo)

Deb is largely credited for the BJP’s turnaround in the state elections -- winning 35 out 60 assembly seats and demolishing one of the last citadels of the Left Front in the country.

Deb, worked as a professional gym instructor in Delhi when he shifted to the national capital about 15 years ago for higher studies.

The chief minister designate also worked as an assistant to Ganesh Singh, the BJP’s MP from Satna Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, before moving to Tripura in 2016 as the party president there.

Sunil Doedhar, the BJP’s prabhari for Tripura, was Deb’s trainer in the RSS and the veteran, KN Govindacharya, his mentor in the outfit.

The decision to send him to Tripura was a calculated move by the BJP. Deb was young as well as a ‘local face’. It was believed that he could power the BJP’s bid to dislodge the CPM along with the help of strategists such as national general secretary, Ram Madhav, who comes from an RSS background, and Himanta Biswa Sarma, the former Congressman who is now the BJP’s main pointsman for the northeast

Deb’s wife is a deputy manager with the Parliament House branch of the State Bank of India and they have two children.

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