By Firstdespatch Desk Nov 09, 2022
Agartala Nov 09: A day after resigning as a member of the Tripura assembly, Mevar Kumar Jamatia joined Pradyut Kishore Deb Barman's TIPRA Motha on Wednesday.
TIPRA Motha Chairman Pradyut Kishore Deb Barman officially announced the information of his joining in a press conference at the ‘Ujjayanata Palace’.
"Mever has been associated with me and my family for a long time, although we have supported parties of different ideologies, we have always maintained decorum," Pradyut told reporters.
Emphasizing the point “Thansa" or unity, the royal scion said, "We are fighting for our survival and our existence and the dream of a greater Tipra Land can only be achieved if we fight unitedly."
Welcoming Jamatia to the party, he said, “Our fight for our people will be stronger from now”.
Jamatia said, “I have been in social service for long years and later joined politics only for the sake of people’s welfare. I always cried for unity because I always believe that united we stand, divided we fall”.
“For the past four years, I was the minister for Tribal Welfare, Forest and Fisheries but could not meet the aspirations of the people, and it that prompted me to take the decision”, he added.
Jamatia is the third MLA of the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), an ally of the BJP, to resign ahead of next year's assembly elections in the Northeastern state.
In June last year, Brishaketu Debbarma had submitted his resignation as the MLA of Simna constituency, while Raima Valley MLA Dhananjoy Tripura quit last month. Both of them have joined the Tipra Motha.
With Jamatia's resignation, the IPFT's tally in the assembly went down to five.
"For the past four years, I was the minister for Tribal Welfare, Forest and Fisheries but could not meet the aspirations of the people, and it that prompted me to take the decision," he added.
Jamatia said the Centre had constituted a high-level committee for socio-economic-linguistic development of the indigenous people after the 2018 assembly elections. "We had meetings with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and tried to get the recommendations of the committee, but nothing yielded in the last four-and-a-half years," he claimed.
Sources said he will join Jamatia, the former general secretary of the IPFT, was "sidelined" for his tiff with party chief NC Debbarma, who is at present the state's minister for revenue and forest.
He was also dropped from the state cabinet in March, and another IPFT MLA, Prem Kumar Reang, was made a minister. FD PD JK