In a major and far-reaching political development in BJPruled Tripura, a newly-formed tribal based party, TIPRA Motha, registered alandslide victory on Saturday to capture power in the politically importantTripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), defeating thesaffron party candidates.
Of the total 28 seats in TTAADC, the TIPRA Motha won 18seats, the BJP secured nine seats while one seat went to an Independentcandidate.
The outcome of the elections to the TTAADC is a majorsetback for the BJP-IPFT (Indigenous People's Front of Tripura) alliance, whichwrested power in Tripura in 2018 after defeating the CPI-M-led Left partiesthat ruled the state for 25 years.
However, as a consolation, the BJP for the first time wonnine seats in the TTAADC though its junior ally IPFT, despite being a majortribal-based party, drew a blank.
According to the results declared by the State ElectionCommission, which conducted the April 6 elections to the 28-member TTAADC, ofthe 28 winners, two are women – Dolly Reang (TIPRA Motha) and Swapna Rani Das(BJP).
The counting of votes took place on Saturday in 16sub-divisional headquarters across Tripura.
Amalgamating various local tribal-based parties andleaders and members of other parties, the TIPRA Motha headed by Tripura's royalscion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman was formed just a few months ago. Itfielded candidates in all the 28 seats while the BJP-IPFT alliance alsocontested all the seats.
Deb Barman, who was earlier the state president of theCongress but subsequently quit the party in 2019 over the Citizenship(Amendment) Act issue, won from the Takarjala-Jampuijala seat in westernTripura.
Deb Barman, 43, son of former Congress minister BibhuKumari Devi and ex-Congress Lok Sabha member Kirit Bikram Kishore Deb Barman,is likely to be the chief executive member of the TTAADC.
Tripura's oldest tribal-based party IndigenousNationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), a former ally of the Congress, is also apartner of the TIPRA Motha, and its two candidates, including general secretaryJagadhish Debbarma, secured victory in the TTAADC polls.
The CPI-M led Left Front, the Congress and the otherparties had also fielded candidates in the 28 seats of TTAADC, which has ajurisdiction of over two-thirds of Tripura's 10,491 sq km area and is home toover 12,16,000 people, of which 90 per cent are tribals.
Over 85 per cent of the 8,65,041 voters had cast theirvotes on Tuesday in the election to the TTAADC, which was constituted under theSixth Schedule of the Constitution in June 1985 for the socio-economicdevelopment of the tribals, which constitute one-third of Tripura's fourmillion population.
The five-year tenure of TTAADC, considered as amini-state Assembly in terms of political significance, expired on May 17 lastyear and the BJP-led state government promulgated the Governor's rule byappointing a retired IAS officer as administrator the next day for a period ofsix months and then extended the term for another six months on November 17.
After months of political tussles, the BJP and the IPFThad on April 6 decided to jointly fight the elections, weeks before the TTAADCpolls.
The opposition CPI-M, which was governing the TTAADCuntil May 17 last year, has also suffered a setback in the elections as it hasa strong base among the tribals evr since the erstwhile princely state had mergedwith the Indian union in October 1949.
The IPFT has been agitating since 2009 for the creationof a separate state by upgrading the TTAADC while TIPRA Motha had recentlyraised the demand for a 'greater Tipra land' (greater areas for the indigenoustribals).
But both the demands were, however, strongly opposed byall the political major parties, including the BJP, the CPI-M and the Congress.