From Bhupen Goswami
GUWAHATI : A four-member delegation of ruling BJP ally Tripura Indigenous People’s Front (IPFT) met Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi and demanded a separate tipraland from the present Autonomous Zilla Parishad of Tripura tribal areas. TADC, which constitutes two-thirds of the state territory. The delegation led by Forest Minister Mewar Kumar Jamatia, who is also the Secretary General of IPFT, met Shah and submitted a five-point memorandum.
In addition to the demand of a full state called Tipraland, the memorandum seeks to submit a report of the High Level Modalities Committee for the Development of Tribes, which accounts for one-third of the state’s population, special indigenous recruitment drive, amendment to the Sixth Programme. To empower THE TADAC and include the tribal language Kokborok in the eighth contract of the Constitution. The IPFT move comes after the BJP-IPFT alliance lost the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTADC) elections to the former Royal Pradyot Kishore Deb Burman-led Tipraha Swadeshi Progressive Regional Alliance (TipRA) in April this year. Deb Burman, son of the last Maharaja of Tripura, has demanded a large tipraland, which aims not only to include tribal people living within the tribal autonomous district, but also those living outside, including other states.
The IPFT memorandum says that in order to protect the identity crisis of the natives of Tripura, we strongly demand the creation of a full-fledged Tipraland State on the basis of Programme Area 6, i.e. The representatives of IPFT discussed the High Power Modality Committee constituted by the Central Government for socio-economic, cultural and linguistic development of indigenous people. He also asked the Interior Minister to expedite the presentation of the report of the Committees.
