With the BJP attaining unassailable lead in Tripura according to counting trends, state party chief Biplab Kumar Deb on Saturday said he was ready to take on the mantle of chief minister.

“I am ready to take the responsibility. I will not run away from taking any responsibility,” he told reporters here when asked if he would accept the task of chief ministership.

However, Deb added that the final decision on the next Chief Minister of Tripura will be taken by the party’s highest decision making body, the Parliamentary Board.

The final decision on the candidature is likely to be taken in the BJP’s Parliamentary Board Meeting scheduled to take place on Saturday evening.

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Deb, a gym instructor-turned-politician, thanked the people of Tripura for their overwhelming support and credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah with the party’s showing.

Born in the Gomoti district of Tripura, Biplab completed his higher education in the state before moving to the national capital for further studies.

“I have already been given a bigger responsibility, the party’s state presidentship, which I have been fulfilling to the best of my ability,” he said.

BJP is on the cusp of ending the Left Front’s 25-year-rule in Tripura and has so far won four seats and is leading in 34 in the 60-member Tripura Assembly, while its ally Indigenous People’s Front Of Tripura has won four seats and is ahead in four others. The CPI-M has won four seats and is leading in 13.

Deb said the people of Tripura favourably responded to the BJP’s call to root out the CPI-M government. “People responded favourably to our call call ‘Chalo Paltai’ (Let’s Change),” he said.

Deb said the next government’s priority would be all- round development of Tripura and people voted for the BJP. “The word development does not exist in the dictionary of the CPI-M. Our government will provide good governance and time-bound implementation of all developmental works,” he said.

In the 2013 Assembly Polls, the CPI(M) had won 49 seats, while the Congress bagged 10 seats and the BJP failed to win even a single seat in the state.

Manik Sarkar has been Chief Minister of Tripura since 1998. He is a politburo member of the CPI-M and has been ruling the state for the fourth consecutive time.

Elections in 59 seats, out of the total 60, were held on 18 February. The poll in one seat was countermanded due to the death of the CPI-M candidate.