Narendra Chandra Debbarma, Tripura’s veteran tribal chief and founding father of the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), an ally of the ruling BJP, was inducted into the Newly-appointed Chief Minister Manik Saha‘s Cabinet Monday. At the swearing-in occasion, Debbarma, 84, who has been ailing for the previous few months, was seen struggling to learn his oath of workplace utilizing a magnifying glass. He had met with a couple of accidents final yr and sustained concussions resulting in his hospitalisation that compelled him to keep away from politics for months. The IPFT has additionally been gripped by a significant disaster, with Debbarma’s management dealing with a severe problem, which could even result in its additional break up within the coming days.
An ideologue of Tripura’s tribal statehood, Debbarma has remained lively in Tripura’s tribal politics for the final 5 many years. He had labored with the All India Radio at Agartala and retired as its station director within the late Nineties. He has been concerned, instantly or not directly, with a slew of tribal political events together with the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti (TUJS), Tripura Hill People’s Party, Tripura Tribal National Council along with the IPFT, which was first floated within the late Nineties.
This IPFT’s first avatar, led by Debbarma, gained the Tripura Autonomous District Council (ADC) elections in 2000 but it surely suffered a break up, following which the NSPT was created in 2004. After a protracted hiatus, the IPFT 2.0 was fashioned in 2009, which once more suffered a break up within the type of a breakaway faction, known as the IPFT-Tipraha, that later teamed up with the BJP and eventually merged with Pradyot Kishore-led TIPRA Motha get together, which swept the Tribal Council polls final yr.
Political observers say Debbarma was primarily behind the formation and splitting of assorted IPFT splinter outfits. After his extended sickness, he sought to take a backseat in the course of the IPFT’s central convention held on 3-4 April this yr, the place his younger protégé Mevar Kumar Jamatia was elected to go the get together.
The IPFT was first conceived within the late Nineties when the proposal of a separate state for Tripura’s indigenous communities was made. Years after the get together was revived in 2009 following its preliminary break up, the Debbarma-led IPFT made a big impression on Tripura politics by elevating the demand for “Tipraland”.
In the 2018 Assembly polls, the get together went on to win 8 seats after which allied with the BJP to kind their coalition authorities, which changed the CPI(M)-led Left Front dispensation, which had been ruling the state for 25 years consecutively. Just a few years later, nonetheless, royal scion Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma began championing the reason for a separate tribal state and floated his TIPRA Motha get together in February 2021. Pradyot pushed his statehood demand within the identify of Greater Tipraland, which is actually an extension of the IPFT’s Tipraland but additionally entails belts having Tripuri tribal habitations in Assam, Mizoram and different Northeastern states together with even components of Bangladesh.
Mevar Kumar Jamatia. (Photo: Debraj Deb)
Amidst his get together’s challenges, together with a crushing defeat within the 2021 Tripura ADC polls by the hands of the fledgling TIPRA Motha, Debbarma has been affected by varied illnesses and age-related well being issues.
While Jamatia claims that he’s the IPFT’s “legitimate president” as per the current organizational ballot outcomes, a significant row has erupted as Debbarma, after mendacity low for a couple of months, has now sought to take the helm of his get together once more, at the same time as he accused the previous of allegedly performing in opposition to the get together’s pursuits by “colluding” with Pradyot and “hatching a concerted conspiracy” to merge the IPFT with Motha.
“How can an IPFT leader say the party itself will be dissolved into another regional party? This is an anti-party activity and he (Jamatia) will be punished according to our party constitution,” Debbarma informed media individuals just lately. He additionally acquired Jamatia dropped from the brand new BJP Cabinet headed by Manik Saha, who changed Biplab Deb as the brand new CM a couple of days in the past.
In his protection, Jamatia stated that 80 per cent of the IPFT leaders from throughout the state, who attended the get together’s April conclave, expressed their willingness to work with the Motha, both by way of merger or by allying with it. Also, he claims, Debbarma himself signed an settlement with Motha in December final yr, which purportedly acknowledged that “…each the events agree that after Delhi Campaign (held early this yr), they may provoke the method of unifying each events as one united political get together”, which might later contest the ADC village committee (VC) elections and 2023 Assembly polls as a single entity.
An upset Jamatia additionally says that Debbarma’s claims over the get together presidentship is “baffling and unintelligible” and that he made an effort to execute Debbarma’s personal pact. He is now planning to take authorized recourse to settle his dispute with Debbarma, who appears to be again accountable for the IPFT now.
Jamatia claims that he labored for over 4 years as a tribal affairs minister for the welfare of individuals. He claims that he has the help of a majority of his get together leaders and legislators, accusing Debbarma of “somehow managing to woo them to his side”.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
