Amidst talks with Centre, TIPRA Motha’s Pradyot Kishore says party MLAs would ‘take on’ Govt inside and outside Assembly

Pradyot’s TIPRA Motha, which was floated in 2021 with the slogan for Greater Tipraland, swept the tribal council polls within two months. However, the party’s slogan has undergone several changes in terms of its core demand for Greater Tipraland–from being a separate state to an autonomous one inside Tripura.

In the absence of a written agreement on its core demand of a constitutional solution for tribals of the state, TIPRA Motha contested alone in the recently concluded Assembly polls and won 13 seats, becoming the second largest party in the House. While both the ruling BJP and the Opposition Left-Congress partnership tried to woo the tribal party before the elections, it didn’t side with anyone even after the polls.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is also the head of the BJP’s NE version of the NDA called North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), and Tripura Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha met Pradyot in Agartala earlier this month to signal off the beginning of a series of talks on problems faced by tribals through an interlocutor. Since then, Pradyot has been saying the process for a constitutional solution for tribals had begun.

Ahead of a meeting with his 13 MLAs in Agartala Thursday, he said, “You will see a breed of new leaders who will take on the GOVT on issues inside and outside the Assembly. Will ask the MLAs to speak about issues which many of our people were previously hesitant of raising in the Assembly…”.

He also sounded a political caution for all other parties as he wrote, “…Yeh 13 Bhari padega sabko”.

The TIPRA Motha MLAs are scheduled to be sworn in on Friday.

If TIPRA Motha declines to join the BJP in the government, it would be the principal opposition in the state assembly.