Guwahati/New Delhi
On a day the country was immersed in colours celebrating Holi, Dr Manik Saha was sworn in as the Tripura Chief Minister for the second time.
Just a couple of hours later a high level team of Government functionaries and BJP like Home Minister Amit Shah, Dr Saha, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP president JP Nadda and BJP’s Northeast Coordinator Sambit Patra among others went into a huddle with TIPRA Motha chief Pradyot Deb Barman.
A seemingly satisfied Pradyot emerged from the meeting to announce that Shah has started the process for a “constitutional solution for the indigenous people of Tripura” and that the Centre would appoint an interlocutor for the process. “The Home Minister has started the process for a constitutional solution for the indigenous people of Tripura. An interlocutor for this process will be appointed and this will be within a specific timeframe,” the TIPRA chief wrote on social media after the meeting.
Pradyot has been making all the right noises so far. He hasn’t made any offensive posturing over the Greater Tipraland demand, which his TIPRA Motha has been vociferously demanding and which had resulted in the party sweeping the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) polls in 2022. In fact, Pradyot thanked Shah for “understanding the genuine problems” of tribals in the state.
While he has sought to counter those who have accused him of softening his stand, he has sought to repose faith in the Centre-initiated dialogue process drawing a parallel with the Bru Accord.
In his social media post, Pradyot said, “We successfully got our Bru people rehabilitation in our state after 23 years by signing the Bru accord and today we have started a huge dialogue to ensure that our survival and existence are protected. Issues such as alliance and Cabinet were never discussed; only the interest of our ‘dopha (community)’ was discussed.”
To keep up pressure on the Government, Pradyot made it clear TIPRA Motha would not join the government till a solution was found. He said the Union Government has promised a written agreement on working on a constitutional solution through the interlocutor. Talks between Shah and Pradyot earlier in 2019 had remained inconclusive.
Though TIPRA Motha could not emerge as the kingmaker as speculated before the polls, his outfit has, in its maiden foray into electoral politics itself, become the second largest party in Tripura by bagging 13 of the total 60 seats.
Tripura has 20 Assembly seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes and the new outfit of the erstwhile royal winning more than half of them came at the expense of BJP’s ally and another tribal outfit, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), which won just a lone seat and could not retain the seven others it won in 2018.
The recent Assembly elections results saw the BJP on its own winning 32 seats, which is one more than the majority magic figure of 31. But by engaging TIPRA Motha it has sought to keep the window open for the outfit to join the government at any stage as also to keep it on its side in view of the Lok Sabha elections next year.
After the meeting, Patra told the media, “We have had a threadbare discussion with TIPRA Motha chief Pradyot Kishore on issues related to tribal welfare, about how respect and dignity of tribals can be established in presence of Home Minister Amit Shah, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and Tripura CM Dr Manik Saha. We have decided to start a series of discussions on these soon and the solution will be drawn out based on our slogan of ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, Sabka Prayas’.”
The BJP spokesperson said there were no discussions on Motha’s prospects of joining the state government or any discussion on ministerial berths.
