Agartala, Feb 6 (UNI) Scion of the erstwhile royal family of Tripura, Pradyot Kishore Deb Barman has announced that he will contest the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC) and urban local body polls under the banner of a year old apolitical organisation The Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA).
Pradyot's decision is apparently signals his hold in the regional tribal politics. Even political parties, including ruling BJP and opposition Congress and CPI-M have been struggling to gain ground in the hill politics of Tripura, which has also been the determining factor in assembly election results.
In the electoral history of Tripura, so far no party has been able to form the government without winning at least 15 seats out of the 20 tribal reserved constituencies in the 60 members assembly.
The ruling BJP would have failed to form the government in 2018 had it not forged an alliance with the IPFT.
This is for the first time in the history of ADC, tribal based IPFT has become a dominant force after it intensified the demand for a separate Tipraland for indigenous population.
The issue of Tipraland has further strengthened the dominance of anti-left regional parties in the ADC poll who also raised the demand of Greater Tipraland.
The strength of BJP and Congress in Tripura hill politics has been dwindling day-by-day though CPI-M has still retained its marginal presence through its tribal wing Gana Mukti Parishad (GMP).
Addressing the media here today, Pradyot Kishore said that TIPRA would contest the forthcoming ADC election and invited all other regional parties to join TIPRA or at least stand together and said, “We have appealed to all the regional political parties to either come and merge with TIPRA or at least come together in a single platform so that we can fight the ADC elections together.”
“TIPRA’s demand for greater Tipraland is not victimising any community or to target any community. We want to come up with a solution for the Tripuri community who are living even outside ADC. Adequate package for socio-economic upliftment and rehabilitation for Tripuris not only in the state but for the community living in other states,” Pradyot Kishore pointed out.
He maintained that TIPRA would not accept financial assistance from any national political party in exchange of alliance and said ideological concurrence would be a must for any sort of poll understanding with any party or group.
Reacting over the recent emergence of militant activities under the banned outfit NLFT in the bordering villages of Tripura Pradyot offered to mediate talks and said, "If the central government is willing to hold talks, I would be happy to play the role of mediator for initiating dialogue with the insurgent outfit and try to convince them to return to mainstream.”
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