TIPRA party chief Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma wrote on Twitter about the meeting. (Photo by @PradyotManikya)
Deb Barma has said that whatever decisions are taken, he will continue with his demand for a separate state.
Ahead of next month’s assembly elections in Tripura, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ally in the state – the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura or IPFT – on Saturday called a “closed-door meeting” with party leaders of the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance or TIPRA in Guwahati. ,
TIPRA party chief Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma said on Twitter, “Met the IPFT leadership yesterday and asked them to consider becoming a party! Time is short and I hope they do the right thing.”
According to sources, the main agenda of the meeting was to discuss a possible merger of the two parties IPFT and TIPRA – led by royal scion and former Congress leader Deb Barma.
The meeting follows Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s recent meeting with Deb Barma in New Delhi. The CM, however, sidestepped questions on the alliance and claimed that the affairs of the Tripura BJP unit were being handled by a separate team.
Deb Barma has said that whatever decisions are taken, he will continue with his demand for a separate state.
TIPRA Motha, which governs the Tripura Tribal Autonomous District Council on its behalf, has been demanding a ‘Greater Tipraland’, comprising all tribal-inhabited areas of Tripura, including TTADC areas as well as other areas, and strategically Has told that it will support anyone. The party or coalition that agrees with its demands.
The party won 18 out of 28 seats in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections held in April last year in a direct contest with the ruling BJP-IPFT alliance on the demand for ‘Greater Tipperaland’.
Both the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress-CPI-M alliance are trying to make TIPRA Motha electoral sense as the tribal party’s votes will be crucial in determining who will rule the northeastern border state in next month’s election.
Tripura will go to polls on February 16 and the counting of votes will take place on March 2. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is February 2.
(With PTI inputs)
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