Tripura: IPFT Plans Protest in New Delhi for Separate ‘Tipraland’

Sentinel Digital Desk

Published:19th Aug, 2024 at 1:48 PM

AGARTALA: The Indigenous People's Front of Tripura, the partner of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Tripura, will agitate at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar on August 23 for the demand of a separate state called Tipraland.

Long has the IPFT been demanding it and bent on declaring the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council as a full state.

Recently, the IPFT has held many agitations in Tripura and in New Delhi to support their demand for a separate state.

The party leaders intend to place a formal memorandum before Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, asking the central government to create a new state from TTAADC using Articles 2 and 3 of the Indian Constitution.

The IPFT leaders also announced that, like in the earlier years, they would also hold a demonstration at Jantar Mantar on August 23 for a fully-fledged Tipraland, to mark the occasion of Tipraland Statehood Demand Day.

They stated that August 23 has been a very special day for the party, as Tipraland Statehood Demand Day is observed since 2009 and, more importantly, it is the day on which the ADC was formed back in 1984.

The IPFT, formed in the 1990s with the objective of chalking out a separate state for indigenous tribals, has suffered from factionalism from time to time, and some leaders have defected to other outfits such as the Tipra Motha Party, headed by ex-royal scion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma.

The IPFT-BJP coalition won a big victory in the 2018 elections to the Tripura Assembly, marking the end of 25 years of governance by the CPI (M)-led Left Front.

However, while this coalition has been successful, little headway has been made toward the IPFT's actual goal of achieving statehood for Tipraland. The establishment of a high-level committee in 2018 is a step toward examining social, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and economic problems affecting the indigenous communities of Tripura, but very little forward movement has occurred on their demands.