Lok Sabha: Centre, Tripura Govt Sign Pact With Tribal Party TIPRA Motha for Constitutional Rights
In what seems like an agreement to keep intact the tribal votes with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Tripura for the 2024 parliamentary polls, the Narendra Modi government has formally entered into a pact with the tribal party, TIPRA Motha, to look at granting ‘constitutional’ rights to the north-eastern state’s tribal population.
The demand has a huge resonance across the state’s tribal Tiprasas which form 30% of the population.
Considerable credit goes to TIPRA Motha or the Tribal Indigenous People’s Regional Alliance, the newest and the most popular among the tribal parties of the state, for uniting the tribal political voice of Tripura towards the demand for a separate state culled out of the present geographical limits of the state. Unitedly, they have been staging a number of rallies, including at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. TIPRA Motha also runs the tribal autonomous council.
On March 1, in a clever move, TIPRA Motha chief Pradyot Debbarman held a meeting with the state Congress and CPI(M) leaders for a possible alliance in the Lok Sabha polls.
The state has two Lok Sabha seats, one of which has a large number of tribal voters. In the 2014 and 2019 elections, both the seats were pocketed by the BJP. In the 2024 elections, the BJP is aiming at increasing its 2019 tally of 17 of the 25 seats in the Northeast.
After the meeting in Agartala, Tripura Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha told reporters that his party expected TIPRA Motha to join the Opposition coalition in the 2024 polls but was unsure of the regional party’s final stance.
