BJP's ally in Tripura seeks separate Tipraland state for tribals

BJP's ally in Tripura, Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), has urged Union Home Minister Amit Shah to create a separate Tipraland state for tribals.

A four-member delegation of IPFT led by Mevar Kumar Jamatia, the forest minister in the BJP-led government, met Shah in New Delhi on Thursday and demanded that a separate Tipraland to protect the identity of the indigenous community be created.

"Our party came into being with the prime goal of having a separate state. Over the decades, it is a fact that the indigenous Tripuri population has become a minority in their own land. So in order to protect the identity of the Tripuri people, we place the demand for the creation of a full-fledged Tipraland state in the 6th Schedule area comprising Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC)," said the memorandum submitted to Shah.

The IPFT at present has eight MLAs, while BJP has 38 MLAs in the 60-member Tripura Assembly.

The demand comes after the BJP-IPFT combine lost the TTAADC to Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA), led by Tripura's Royal scion, Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma, in April this year. Debbarma has been trying to unite the political outfits representing the indigenous people in the state for accomplishing Tipraland state.

The IPFT also urged Shah for submission of the report of the high-level modality committee for development of the tribals, which constitute one-third of the state’s population, a special recruitment drive for indigenous people, an amendment to the Sixth Schedule to empower the TTAADC and the inclusion of Kokborok, the tribal language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.