Two tribal parties merge ahead of crucial TTADC poll in Tripura

NCT, the rebel fraction of INPT, was born in 2006 under the leadership of tribal stalwart Rabindra Kishore Debbarma.

After losing in 2008 election as INPT nominee, former MLA Animesh Debbarma had taken over the party but could not make a significant impact on state politics during the past decade.

Since last assembly elections in 2018, Animesh Debbarma had come closer to INPT as a partner and contested the election but lost in contest. He continued to support INPT against Citizenship Amendment Bill movement.

Recently, Citizenship (Amendment) Act has polarized the tribal vote bank over the demand of NRC in Tripura to identify the illegal migrants.

Though BJP’s ally in the government, IPFT supported the move of other political parties against CAA and the demand of NRC, IPFT could not openly join hands with the other parties because of its alliance obligation with the BJP despite huge disagreements between the ground-level workers of the two parties.

IPFT has also decided to fight the ADC polls jointly with BJP if they are allowed to field candidates on at least 20 seats of the 30 members’ council.

According to reports, tribal parties have come together ahead of ADC election to prevent BJP, Congress and CPI (M) into power.

Despite being an alliance partner of BJP in Tripura, IPFT had fought the last Lokb Sabha and the three-tire panchayat elections separately.

The IPFT legislators have been unhappy with their leadership and the functioning of the state government and both the ministers from IPFT in Biplab Kumar Deb’s government have been under tremendous pressure from their followers.

Meanwhile, the leaders of INPT (U) asserted that it would play a crucial role in the upcoming polls to the ADC as a strong political power.

INPT General Secretary Jagadish Debbarma said, “All the NCT leaders will be given due respect in the party and the party-state committee will be reconstituted.”

Significantly, royal scion and former chief of Congress and incumbent head of The Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) Pradyot Kishore Debbarman was present on the occasion of the formation of INPT (U) and expressed hoped that the regional parties would become stronger in the days to come.