IPFT supremo turns down alliance offer from Pradyot

AGARTALA

: Indigenous People’s Front of

Tripura

(IPFT) supremo and state revenue minister NC Debbarma has turned down Tripura PCC president and royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarman’s offer to join hands with Congress and Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT) for contesting the two parliamentary seats in the state.


IPFT sources said Pradyot, along with INPT supremo Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawal, visited Debbarma’s residence on Wednesday and asked the latter join the Congress-INPT alliance. They reportedly told him that Congress will sacrifice the East Tripura seat for IPFT and that the Grand Old Party would also withdraw the nomination of Pradyot’s elder sister Rajkumari Pragya in West Tripura.

“Just got a call from NC Debbarma that he will contest both the seats. We visited him and urged him not to allow Tiprasa (tribal) votes to be divided and join us to stop BJP, which is for Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. Sadly, our words for unity have been rejected by IPFT. Sometimes, we are our worst enemies,” Pardyot said on Thursday.

On the other hand, more than 4,600 IPFT supporters have joined BJP and Congress in the last 15 days and more than 900 IPFT workers deserted the party three days ago in the Takarjala constituency from where NC Debbarma got elected and became a minister. “ IPFT contested the last assembly election in tribal reserved seats with the slogan of separate state for tribals (Tipraland) last year. Accordingly, it won 8 seats and its president and general secretary became ministers. But they have not been able to pursue the core demand of

Tipraland

in the government rather agreed to the tribal development proposition of BJP, which made the common IPFT supporters hostile,” said an IPFT worker.

The growing distance between BJP and IPFT over seat-sharing issue has somehow pushed IPFT closer to Congress and other regional parties. The tribal parties in Tripura have organised a convention in autonomous district council headquarters at the end of this week to launch a movement for tribal development at the regional level.

Debbarma said both BJP and IPFT are harping on the desire to have a friendly battle in both the parliamentary constituencies. Without active support of IPFT in the assembly elections, the

saffron

party could not have formed government in Tripura last year, he added. He further said there was absolutely no problem in the last one year and both the parties worked together for the state’s development.

“We decided to contest the

Lok Sabha

election separately so that we can press for our primary demand of ‘Twipraland’ in Parliament. In the last three months, talks between BJP and IPFT have failed to come at a decision on seat sharing in the LS polls. Later on, the BJP top brass also tried to persuade us to not contest the elections. But the core committee of IPFT has unanimously decided to go it alone to highlight the voice of the indigenous population of the state in Parliament,” he added.

Earlier this week, Congress and INPT had forged an alliance in the state to block the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.