NEW DELHI, July 30
Just days after he was appointed as the Governor of Telangana, former Tripura deputy chief minister Jishnu Dev Varma on Monday said that the Opposition was not an enemy.
A member of the erstwhile Tripura royal family and popularly called ‘Karta’, Dev Varma served as deputy chief minister in the Biplab Deb cabinet from 2018 and also held the same office later in the first Manik Saha government.
Interacting with media persons at his residence in Agartala, Dev Varma said he would be sworn in as the Telangana Governor in Hyderabad on July 31 and would attend the Governor’s Conference at New Delhi’s Rashtrapati Bhawan the following day.
Talking about how he would render his duties in Congress-ruled Telangana, Dev Varma said, “I shall try to work together with the chief minister there. There is an elected government there. I shall be the Constitutional head.
“My job will be to work closely with the CM to take Telangana towards further development and progress. It is a different type of work.”
He also said he would try to use his experience as a cabinet minister in Tripura to help Telangana and bring back his experience of working in a larger state like Telangana to Tripura. “Experience is the main thing. I have always laid the highest stress on experience,” he added. Asked how he would deal with a Congress-led state government having been a BJP leader for most of his political career, Dev Varma said, “The Opposition is not an enemy. These days, many of us, including the media, mix these two words. Your opponent is not your enemy. They think it will be good to tread a certain path, while we have a different approach… Besides, it is impossible to have a democracy without the Opposition.”
Terming himself a ‘helper’ in his new role, Dev Varma said, “When I was a politician, I was an opponent (of certain parties). As a Governor, my job is that of a helper, a coordinator between the executive and the Constitution. I am not an opponent of anyone anymore.”
Meanwhile, Governor appointee Dev Varma thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving special attention to Tripura and Northeast. “Tripura hardly had a few Padma awardees before PM Modi took charge in 2014 but several personalities from the state have won the Padma awards in the last 10 years. Infrastructural development has also happened at a fast pace,” he said, adding that a person (referring to himself) has been appointed as a Governor from the state in over seven decades.
Born to Ramendra Kishore Dev Varma and ‘Rajkumari’ (princess) Kamal Prabha Devi in August 1957, Jishnu Dev Varma was earlier associated with the Congress before shifting his allegiance to the BJP in 1993, when the saffron party was only a minor player in Tripura politics.
