NDTV's article in 2018, proclaimed that back then, he was the poorest chief minister in India with bank balance of Rs.

His affidavit for the 2018 Tripura Assembly election revealed that he is the chief minister with the least possessions among all his counterparts in India.

[9] During his first year at the college there came the turbulent times of the food movement of 1967, campaigning against the policy of the then Congress government of Tripura, and Sarkar threw himself headlong into the related student struggle.

[7] When the Left Front government took control in 1993, Sarkar was appointed the State Secretary of the CPI (M).

At the age of 49, he became a member of the Politburo of the CPI (M), which is the principal policy-making and executive committee in a Communist party.

Sarkar is married to Panchali Bhattacharya, who was employed with the Central Social Welfare Board till she retired in 2011.

He used to donate his entire salary that he received as a Chief Minister to his party and in return, got ₹ 5,000 per month as allowance.