Barman contested assembly election for the first time in 1993 from
Agartala constituency against former
CPI(M) Chief Minister Nripen Chakraborty and lost. Later, in 1998 Barman contested from the same constituency & defeated
CPI(M) leader Krishna Rakshit by a margin of 2062 votes. He won 5 assembly elections consecutively since 1998 defeating prominent Communist leaders Dr Bikash Roy,
Sankar Prasad Datta, Krishna Rakshit respectively. In 2016, he is one of the six MLAs from
Indian National Congress who joined
All India Trinamool Congress, due to various inconsistencies with the
Indian National Congress allying with
Communist Party of India (Marxist) in
2016 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election. On 7 August 2017, he along with 5 other
AITC MLAs of Tripura Legislative Assembly joined BJP in presence of
Himanta Biswa Sarma and
Dharmendra Pradhan after they cross voted against the party lines in
2017 Indian presidential election. In March 2018, Barman was appointed the Health Minister designated with other portfolios at the
Biplab Deb Cabinet but was removed shortly as the Cabinet Minister due to his anti party activities. On 7 February 2022, he and MLA
Ashish Kumar Saha resigned from their MLA post and quit
BJP. On 8 February, Barman, along with his supporters, joined
INC. ==Controversy==