Simple housewife becomes lawmaker in Tripura

Agartala, Mar 10 (UNI) Out of three successful candidates from CPI(M) fold, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has chosen Ms Bijaya Nath,a 40-year-old housewife, as a minister in his 12-member cabinet that was sworn in here today.

Talking to UNI after taking oath as a minister, Ms Nath, the lone female minister in the sixth Left Front government, said '' God knows how I will handle ministerial work, as I never held any government post, never contested any election before this tenth Assembly election. Even I do not know anything about administrative formalities and bureaucratic method of functioning,'' she admitted.

Mrs Nath was the wife of a schoolteacher and mother of two teens in Kadamtala village in north Tripura - till she contested the elections on CPI-M ticket. She won from the Kadamtala constituency by a slender margin of 128 votes defeating former Assembly Speaker Jyotirmoy Nath of the Congress.

She had been associated with the party's Students Federation of India (SFI) during her school days and it was her first time nomination as a candidate of CPM in a Congress dominated area along with 30 others.

Three women, the highest number so far in Tripura, were elected - all from the CPI-M. Besides Nath, the other two new women lawmakers are Gauri Das and Rita Kar Majumdar, who secured the highest winning margin of 8,307 in Tripura election this time.

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