Biplab Kumar Deb: Fit and proper pracharak

Tripura's first BJP chief minister-designate owes his climb to prominence to several mentors in the RSS, in which he has served since the early nineties

Biplab Kumar Deb, a gym instructor, set to be the new Tripura chief minister, ran the headlines on television channels and news websites as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ended the 25-year rule of the Left Front in Tripura when the counting of votes took place on Saturday.

Since then, Deb, 48, has spent at least some minutes in most of his interviews to the media clarifying that he has never been a gym instructor.

His journalist friends in New Delhi — and he has several because he has worked closely over the past 15 years with some senior BJP