BJP's Tripura ally IPFT to agitate in Delhi for separate state

The IPFT, a ruling ally of the BJP, said Friday that it would organise a rally in Delhi to press for Tripraland, a separate state for tribals, and the scrapping of the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016.

Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) General Sectary Mangal Debbarma said the decision to hold the mass rally in the second week of December was taken in the executive body meeting of the party recently.

Over a thousand of IPFT activists and supporters would hold a sit-in-demonstration and organise a mass rally, Debbarma said.

On the sidelines of the demonstrations, a delegation of the party will try to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Sigh, he added.

The senior IPFT leader also said that they would observe a dawn-to-dusk strike on December 5 in Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) to push for their demands.

The TTAADC constitutes two third of the state territory and is home to tribals, which form one third of the state population.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the IPFT jointly secured 44 of the 60 seats in the February 18 Tripura assembly polls, ending 25 years of CPI(M)-led Left Front rule in the northeastern state.

Separate state of Tripraland has been an old demand of the IPFT, a tribal based regional party.

Despite crossing the majority mark with 36 seats, the BJP formed the government with its pre-poll partner, the IPFT albeit without clarifying its stand on the demand for the separate state.

The IPFT, which emerged victorious in 8 seats, was allotted two berths in the state cabinet. But of late, cracks appeared in the alliance over different issues including Trpraland and Citizen Amendment Bill.

In fact, the BJP and IPFT workers had clashed at several places in the run up to the panchayat by-polls in Tripura in September.