By Firstdespatch Desk Jan 08, 2023
Agartala, Jan 8 (FD): In an effort to bring the tribal parties in Tripura under one umbrella ahead of the ensuing assembly elections, Chairman of Tipra Motha, Pradyot Kishore Deb Barma appealed to the ruling Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) to fight the elections on “one symbol”.
He renewed his appeal to the party after the death of IPFT President and former Revenue Minister N C Debbarma, who breathed his last on Sunday last, who earlier rejected the same appeal.
Deb Barma, who is the royal scion, said it was the right time to get united, and that is what the people want.
"NC Debbarma (IPFT president) is no longer with us. Our demand is the same... What is in a name? You will get nothing. Come forward; let's raise our voice together for 'thansa' (unity). I am ready to contest on one symbol," Debbarma said in a Face book live on Saturday last.
"It is the right time to be united and the poor people want unity. If leaders break the hearts of people, god will not pardon us," he added.
Reacting to the statement, IPFT spokesperson Amit Debbarma said, "The party's leadership is considering the pros and cons of the approach. We will let the people know our decision at the earliest."
In the last 2018 elections, IPFT fought the elections as an ally of the BJP and bagged eight seats in the sixty-member assembly and BJP won 36 seats and ended the 25-year old Marxist Government in the state.
However, the IPFT has four MLAs in the assembly at present as it lost three of its MLAs last year -- Dhananjoy Tripura, Brishaketu Debbarma and Mevar Kumar Jamatia. The resignations of Dhananjoy Tripura and Mevar Kumar Jamatia were accepted by the speaker but Brishaketu was disqualified on the account of "procedural fault".
Jamatia, who was the general secretary of the party, is likely to join Tipra Motha before the assembly elections slated for next month.
The TIPRA Motha came into being in February 2021, after quitting as the state Congress president in 2019.
The tribal based party swept the 30-member Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections. The tribal council constitutes two third of the state’s geographic area, which is home to the tribals, who form one third of the state’s estimated 40 lakh populations. FD JK