After talks with TIPRA Motha, BJP gets the ball rolling: Centre to appoint interlocutor on tribal welfare

Tipra has not compromised ! Wait and watch pic.twitter.com/8CdeJTmtHm

— Pradyot_Tripura (@PradyotManikya) March 8, 2023

After the meeting, the BJP’s Northeast coordinator Sambit Patra told the media, “We have had a threadbare discussion with TIPRA Motha chief Pradyot Kishore ji on issues related to tribal welfare, about how respect and dignity of tribals can be established in presence of Home Minister Amit Shah, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and Tripura CM Dr Manik Saha. We have decided to start a series of discussions on these soon and the solution will be drawn out based on our slogan of ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, Sabka Prayas’.”

The BJP spokesperson said there were no discussions on Motha’s prospects of joining the state government or any discussion on ministerial berths.

In the afternoon, about two hours after Manik Saha and his Cabinet took the oath of office, Debbarma arrived at the state guest house to meet the BJP leaders. The meeting is learnt to have started at 2 pm Almost two hours later, Shah went into the guest house following a visit to the Tripura Sundari temple in Udaipur in Gomati district.

In his social media post, Pradyot wrote that earlier a permanent solution for Mizoram’s Bru migrants was achieved in Tripura after 23 years through the Bru Accord. A “huge dialogue” had again started to ensure the interests of tribals, he added. “We successfully got our Bru people rehabilitation in our state after 23 years by signing the Bru accord and today we have started a huge dialogue to ensure that our survival and existence are protected. Issues such as alliance and Cabinet were never discussed; only the interest of our ‘dopha (community)’ was discussed,” he said.

He reiterated the statement in a press conference and said while the Union Government had promised a written agreement on working on a constitutional solution through the interlocutor, TIPRA Motha would not join the government till a solution was found.

TIPRA Motha was floated in 2021 with the call for a state of “Greater Tipraland”. But the nature of its core demand has undergone change since then, with the party moving away from the demand for a separate state to one seeking constitutional solutions for problems faced by tribals. Before the elections, discussions between Debbarma and Amit Shah ended on an inconclusive note. But the talks restarted again over the weekend, with Sarma on Saturday saying that the BJP was “prepared to talk” to the party about everything except the Greater Tipraland demand.

The BJP, according to party insiders, is trying to get TIPRA Motha on its side to ensure smooth sailing in the state in the Lok Sabha elections next year. At present, TIPRA Motha is the second-largest party in the Assembly with 13 seats and the favourite to win one of Tripura’s two parliamentary seats, which is reserved for tribals. By keeping the dialogue going, the BJP has kept the door open for Pradyot Debbarma to join hands with it in the future.