New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) plan to enter an alliance with the TIPRA Motha has run into rough weather as the regional outfit remains firm on a written assurance of creating a Greater Tipraland before joining hands with the ruling party in Tripura.
On Sunday, senior BJP leaders, including Tripura BJP incharge Mahesh Sharma and Sarma, held talks with Union Home Minister Amit Shah to discuss the feasibility of reaching a consensus on Motha’s demand.
Pradyot Debbarma, the TIPRA Motha chief, has refused to scale down the Greater Tipraland demand even after he recently met North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convenor and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in New Delhi on Thursday and then had a meeting in Guwahati on Saturday where Sarma, Mahesh Sharma and Sambit Patra were present.
“Good morning everyone ! Just wanted to tell some people in the media that I was always told as a child that A king never sells his kingdom and money and power come and go but good name lasts forever . Have a good day everyone (sic),” Debbarma tweeted Sunday.
The TIPRA Motha is insisting on a written assurance from the Ministry of Home Affairs accepting its demand Greater Tipraland which, if formed, will comprise the region under Tripura tribal area autonomous District Council and 36 other villages.
Tripura will go to polls on 16 February.
“The main roadblock in alliance with Motha is its insistence on asking for written assurance. In politics, no government can give in writing (such a demand) without going to Cabinet and Parliament. Our party is sympathetic to Motha’s demands but it has to drop the demand of written assurance. Both sides have a desire to stitch an alliance…Motha knows that it can’t sustain the movement for long without fulfilling their (people’s) aspiration in return and that only union government has capability to facilitate their demands,” a BJP leader told ThePrint.
A senior Motha leader remained unmoved over his party’s demand, saying that they “cannot betray people in exchange of freebies”.
“Nothing has changed since our last meeting…They are offering us other things apart from our main demand of written assurance of Greater Tipraland. We even suggested that ‘you can say after making government we will give Greater Tipraland in six months or one year’, but they are saying come and join the cabinet and are offering other freebies. We can’t betray our people in exchange of freebies, which is a normal practice in Northeast politics,” the Motha leader told ThePrint
Motha president Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl told ThePrint that the BJP is “not serious” about ensuring the rights of tribals. “An alliance is not feasible in such conditions. We are not asking anything beyond the Constitution, but they are not serious about our demand.”
Party insiders told ThePrint that there was a possibility of the outfit fighting the election on its own but a “final decision will be taken in a day or two”.
Meanwhile Motha has already started talks with BJP’s ally Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) for a possible merger as both parties are fighting for the same demand seeking a permanent constitutional solution for the indigenous people.
IPFT president Prem Kumar Reang, who is also a minister in Tripura, met TIPRA Motha chief Pradut Debbarma in Guwahati on Saturday. After the meeting, Debbarma told the media that the two sides had agreed to start the process of merger.
“We had raised the demand of Tipraland since 2009 and allied with the BJP. But our demand was not fulfilled. Now, we are aligning with Motha as supporting him (Debbarma) is crucial at this juncture to fulfill the demand,” Reang told ThePrint.
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BJP worries over tribal vote
The BJP’s desperation to stitch an alliance with TIPRA Motha came after the IPFT’s declining influence in the tribal belt of Tripura.
In April last year, the Motha swept the election to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), a constitutional body which has jurisdiction over the tribal belt comprising two-thirds of Tripura’s geographical area and a third of the state’s population. The party won 18 of the 28 seats as it banked on the emotive demand of Greater Tipraland. The remaining nine went to the BJP.
Of the seven MLAs who quit the ruling BJP-IPFT alliance last year, four joined the Motha which is led by Debbarma, an ex-Congressman and scion of Tripura’s erstwhile royal family.
The TIPRA Motha reportedly plans to contest in 45-50 seats out of the Northeast state’s 60 assembly constituencies. Twenty seats in Tripura are reserved for tribals, while their numbers are significant in another 10.
In 2018, the BJP had won 10 seats in the tribal belt and IPFT bagged eight, but the 2021 TTADC result and the subsequent trickle of MLAs to Tipra Motha has the BJP worried.
When the BJP ended the Left Front’s 31-year reign in 2018, it started its Tripura innings on a high note. But the euphoria has given way to significant problems. In May last year, the party replaced Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb with Manik Saha, reportedly due to factionalism as well as due to exodus of MLAs.
In October 2021, BJP MLA Ashis Das switched over to the Trinamool Congress while in September last year Burba Mohan Tripura joined the TIPRA Motha. The BJP received a fresh setback in February when its MLAs Sudip Roy Barman and Ashis Kumar Saha moved to the Congress.
Alliance partner IPFT is also giving some heartburn to the BJP as three MLAs Mevar Kumar Jamatia, Dhananjoy Tripura and Brishaketu Debbarma apart from its diminishing returns in tribal belt.
“The influence of the IPFT is decreasing in the tribal belt and we are concerned about the growing support that Pradyot Debbarma is getting,” a BJP minister told ThePrint. “Many leaders want to dump IPFT and contest elections independently in the tribal belt, but the high command was in favour of stitching an alliance with the Motha but now it looks uncertain.”
BJP leader Rebati Tripura, however, told ThePrint that Motha would not win more than two-three seats if it fights independently. The BJP has a good presence in tribal areas which we demonstrated in the previous assembly election. We are a national party. How can we give written assurance on anything which is not debated?” the Tripura East Lok Sabha MP asserted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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