Agartala: Riddled with the growth of royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarman’s party Tipra Motha among the indigenous population of Tripura, ruling BJP is all set to include Patal Kanya Jamatia in its fold who had been dissected from Motha recently over allegation of indulging in the fight.
In the days following Tipra Motha’s spectacular rally in Agartala last week, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb had met Patal Kanya Jamatia at his residence and had also met Himanta Biswa Sarma, newly elected NEDA Chairman of Assam, along with Information minister of Tripura Sushanta Chowdhury.
BJP sources said that she would soon be joined in BJP and to be mobilised in the hills to destabilise Motha and challenge Pradyot Kishore Debbarman. Before joining Patal Kanya might be meeting with the central leaders in Delhi to settle down her score in BJP at this crucial stage ahead of the upcoming assembly poll.
The state has 20 tribal reserved seats and another fifteen constituencies have a majority of tribal votes in the 60-member house, where Pradyot has declared to run in 2023 assembly elections without an alliance with any party unless he receives a written commitment from ‘Greater Tipraland’.
A large number of BJP and IPFT supporters have already shifted to Tipra Motha and IPFT would be expected to merge with Pradyot’s party before the elections, sources indicated.
However, Motha leaders said they are open to all the parties and their supporters for the development of indigenous communities and empowerment of ADC and added, “We are not power hungry to get a hot seat, instead we are committed to the cause and accepted the battle as mission where Patal Kanya types of personalities are not fit for, so she was thrown out and BJP always prefer to accept the rejected elements of other parties.”
“The BJP tried to appease Pradyot Kishore offering him to central minister and the latest nomination of Rajya Sabha, which election to be held on March 31 next. The royal family was offered to settle their cases of immovable properties pending for a long time in the different courts including the ownership of Neermahal (the lone water palace of eastern India) but everything was rejected. Now, let them try to play with Patal Kanya and others to break Motha,” said a senior functionary of Pradyot’s team.
The BJP has failed to garner the support of indigenous communities despite having 11 BJP legislators from scheduled tribes and a Loksabha MP in four years besides, alliance with tribal-based party IPFT. Pradyot used the non-compliance of BJP’s poll promise towards its alliance partner IPFT regarding the empowerment of the autonomous district council (ADC).
According to a senior tribal legislator of BJP, indigenous people are not happy with BJP because of not passing the Constitution (125th Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the Parliament for empowerment ADC and development of indigenous population, which has also eroded the support base of IPFT.
