Ahead of Manik Saha swearing-in, Pradyot renews pitch: ‘Won’t join govt without constitutional solution’

Pradyot also stated that the Motha leaders would not look for their individual interests over their communities, stating that “I will wait for the official response from the Govt of India on how they would like to see the future of our tiprasa in the next decade”.

In the elections to the 60-member Tripura Assembly, the incumbent BJP clinched a simple majority by winning 32 seats while its ally IPFT could win just 1 seat.

The TIPRA Motha bagged 13 seats to emerge as the second largest party, while the CPI(M) and the Congress, which had fought the polls in an alliance, could manage to get 11 and 3 seats respectively.

If the Motha sticks to its decision not to join the government unless its condition is met, the party would become the principal Opposition in the state Assembly.

While both the BJP and the CPI(M)-Congress camps had been trying to woo the tribal party from before the elections, the latter had stuck to its stand seeking a written agreement for its core demand without which it said it would not join hands with anyone.

Pradyot had founded the TIPRA Motha in 2021 centred on the demand

for “Greater Tipraland”, which has however undergone a few changes – from being a separate state to an autonomous state inside Tripura.

Although the BJP has made repeated bids to reach out to Motha, with Amit Shah meeting Pradyot ahead of the polls and the party-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) chairperson and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma wooing him after the polls, but they have not succeeded in getting him on board.

Pradyot, who has not been keeping too well recently due to some kidney- related ailment, was in Shillong for a few days following the Assembly poll results. After returning to Agartala this evening, he said he had got some calls from Delhi about Motha being offered ministerial berths in the BJP-led government. He also said Sarma had invited him for talks on joining the government.

The TIPRA Motha chief, however, reiterated his demand for a constitutional solution to the state tribals’ issues, saying: “If we sit in government without giving anything to the community, it would be the same thing that IPFT did (in 2018). We want a constitutional solution. Let Delhi resume the talks they started before polls. We shall think of government after that.”

Stating that the Motha would accept any solution if it is for the tribal communities and not politicians, Pradyot also threw down the gauntlet at the ruling dispensation, saying if anyone thinks they can run Tripura ignoring the state’s 30 per cent tribal population “everyone will have problems in coming days”.

His barb at the IPFT seemed to have a reference to a modality committee set up by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in 2018 for studying problems faced by Tripura’s tribals in their socio-economic, cultural and linguistic issues and to ensure their upliftment in these areas.

Five years after the formation of this committee, its recommendations are yet to be made public. The IPFT itself has been critical of the BJP over this issue, even though it renewed their alliance this year ahead of the polls.