Khövsgöl Province
The Soviet-educated Tsedenbal viewed Damba as "backward," lazy, and uneducated. He engineered Damba's removal from office in November 1958, just six months after the Thirteenth MPRP congress had reelected him to the position. Taking a cue from Nikita Khrushchev’s 1957 consolidation of power in the USSR by purging political rivals Georgy Malenkov and Nikolai Bulganin, Tsedenbal accused Damba of “profound ideological-political backwardness, conservatism and inertia” and “opportunist tolerance of distortions and shortcomings.” Just over a year later, in November 1959, Damba was sent into internal exile and demoted to director of the Ikh-Uul district animal husbandry machinery station in remote Khövsgöl Province. In 1962 Damba became deputy director of the Institute of Agriculture, a position he held until 1977.