AGARTALA: Two days after a party delegation met representatives of the ministry of home affairs to discuss their demand for a separate state for indigenous people, TIPRA Motha chief Pradyot Kishore Deb Barma on Friday announced his party would fight the Tripura assembly elections alone.
The Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) Motha that was founded by Deb Barma after his exit from the Congress has been pursued by both the BJP and the Left-Congress combine for an alliance, but he has maintained that the party would not firm up a partnership unless there was a written assurance that their primary demand will be fulfilled.
Deb Barma wrote on Twitter on Friday, “No alliance – my heart does not agree and so I have made my decision that I cannot accept New Delhi’s offer. We may win or lose, but we will fight one last time. I can’t betray our cause and our people.”
In a video message, he also said that every regional party in Tripura’s history had betrayed the people. “Since 1977 every regional party representing indigenous people has brought back some agreement from Delhi before the elections. But after they are over, we have not got anything,” he said.
He told reporters on Friday that his party intended to contest between 35 and 40 seats in the 60-member Tripura assembly that goes to the polls in a single phase on February 16. The assembly has 20 seats that are reserved for scheduled tribes.
Since 1977, no tribal political party has contested elections without forging an alliance with a national party. In 2018, the IPFT, that Deb Barma has urged be merged with the TIPRA Motha, fought in alliance with the BJP which eventually broke a two-decade CPI(M) stranglehold to form government.
The Left-Congress alliance however said that they were still open for discussions. “We shall talk to him again. If he decides to contest alone, it will only benefit the BJP,” said CPM leader Pabitra Kar.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Maboswar Ali, the sitting CPM MLA from Kailasahar, and former Tripura Trinamool Congress chief Subal Bhowmik joined the BJP on Friday in the presence of Chief Minister Manik Saha. Bhowmik was previously in the BJP, and had left the party in 2019 to join the Congress, and then the TMC in 2021.
