IPFT presses for separate Tipraland

The emergence of a new state–Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh ignited a tribal party in Tripura to demand for separate statehood.Like any other state of the region,the smaller state model was based on ethnic lines.

While the party has been raging with movement for concentrated development of tribals since the past one year, the other major tribal political party of the state–Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra(INPT) have gradually gonemdown in the lines of public support. Tribal vote bank in the 2014 Manu by-election in Tripura gave 3018 votes to IPFT against 432 secured by the INPT.

IPFT of course didn’t make it to power but the shift of trust from more power for the ADC to an entire separate state does indicate things.Priyanka Deb Barman tries to find out.

A regional indigenous party–Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura(IPFT) having a small support base of tribal people sought upgradation of Tribal Autonomous District Council and a separate state to be formed from Tripura.

“The indigenous people in Tripura are the most underdeveloped people till now.They are deprived of their basic rights.The unequal development is quite visible in hilly areas dominated by them. We are the original inhabitants of Tripura.And our demand is for the development of the indigenous people,” said IPFT president NC Debbarma while speaking to Eastern Panorama.

The party submitted memorandum to Union Home Minister first on August, 2009;November, 2009. Later, the same memorandum was continued in October, 2010; March, 2011; June, 2011; December 2011; October, 2012 and August, 2013.In the memorandum, IPFT claimed that infiltration of foreign nationals in Tripura before during and after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 left a remarkable impact on the demographic condition of Tripura.

Priyanka Deb Barman

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