BJP, IPFT MLAs to elect leader on Mar 6

The MLAs of the BJP and the IPFT will meet here on March 6 to elect their leader, Tripura BJP president Biplab Deb said today, even as the saffron party's ally demanded a respectable representation in the government.

The BJP has 35 MLAs and the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) has eight.

Union minister Nitin Gadkari will be present at the meeting, Deb told PTI.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many Union ministers are likely to attend the oath-taking ceremony.

The elections in 59 seats of the 60-member Assembly were held on February 18. Polling was countermanded in one seat due to the death of a CPI(M) candidate.
 

Meanwhile, the IPFT sought a respectable representation for its MLAs in the new state government, a day after the party and the BJP swept the Assembly polls, ending the 25-year Left Front rule in the state.

IPFT president N C Debbarma also asked the BJP to select the chief minister from among the tribal MLAs.

The tribal party won eight of the nine seats it had contested. The BJP won 35 seats on its own, giving it a majority in the 60-member Tripura Assembly.

"We demand a respectable representation of IPFT MLAs in the new Cabinet," Debbarma told a press conference.

He, however, did not clarify what he meant by "respectable representation".

"We think it would be just for the indigenous people if an indigenous MLA is named as the chief minister. It is also the tradition in the northeast," he said.

The BJP-IPFT combine won 17 out of the 20 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in the February 18 elections.

Asked what will happen if the chief minister is not selected from among the tribal MLAs, Debbarma said, "I only said about the tradition. There is no force."

The IPFT came into being in late 1990s and campaigned for a separate state by carving out the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, which constitute two third of the state's territory.

However, it forged an alliance with the BJP on the basis of a common minimum agenda and the saffron party made it clear that it was opposed to the demand for a separate state.