The main Opposition party of the Tripura state assembly, the Tipra Motha of the royal scion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma, after a stunning debut in this year’s state assembly elections, is now struggling to retain the momentum. Aware of the ground reality, the party has now decided to hold the first two-day plenary session this month, most likely on June 23 and 24.
Delay of the visit of the “interlocutor”
The problems for Tipra Motha started on the day the results of the state assembly elections were declared early this year. Despite claims that it would emerge as the kingmaker, it failed to do so as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with its ally, Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) formed the government for the second time.
Since then, the politics of Tipra Motha has been based on the issue of an “interlocutor” — to be appointed by the Centre — to look into the party’s demand for a constitutional solution for the tribals. Pradyot had announced several times the visit of an “interlocutor” to the state but that didn’t materialise. He even had meetings with Assam Chief Minister and North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on this issue.
A significant thing is that both the Centre and the state government have been avoiding the word “interlocutor”. There were reports of interlocutor AK Mishra visiting the state but he was introduced by the state government as the advisor to the government of India on Northeast affairs and the word “interlocutor” wasn’t mentioned. Although later, he didn’t visit the state and if reports are to be believed, he was preoccupied with the developments of Manipur.
Importantly, an interlocutor is generally appointed by the Centre to initiate a dialogue with a banned organisation. This is not the case with Tipra Motha, which is a political party. So how can there be an “interlocutor” is also the question asked by many, including the Left leaders. Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) state secretary Jitendra Choudhury has even termed the “interlocutor” issue as a bogus one.
Soft-approach towards the BJP
Although the party’s Animesh Debbarma became the leader of the Opposition, Tipra Motha has faced allegations of taking a soft approach towards the ruling BJP. These allegations strengthened when Motha, despite initially showing its intentions to support, didn’t back the Opposition Left-Congress candidate for the Speaker elections. During the time of the elections, the party walked out of the state assembly on the pretext of a minor issue of assembly seat arrangement.
Pradyot had even called for a fast-unto-death agitation in the last week of March on the issue of the delay of the interlocutor but that didn’t happen after he had a “fruitful” meeting with Himanta.
Meanwhile the tribal people, according to the state media, living under the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council — currently ruled by Motha — are facing problems like scarcity of work, food, water etc. Not only this, the ADC administration has been unable to pay the salaries of the employees on time. However, for this situation, Motha has been blaming the BJP for not providing the required funds to the ADC. It is true that the state BJP government has reduced the funding of the Motha-ruled ADC budget. But the question arises why the party has been unable to launch protest movements in the hills, where it is the dominant force. In the name of protest, recently, there was a one-day demonstration led by Pradyot outside the governor’s house on this issue.
The truth is that the party’s activities have reduced after the elections — and this is evident from party chairman Pradyot’s statement where he asked his party leaders, including MLAs and Members of the District Council, to be active on the ground.
Dissatisfaction rising within the party
Recently, the South Zonal chairman of the ADC, Debojit Tripura, resigned from his post. Although he resigned citing health reasons, the actual reason seems to be his unhappiness with the party, which inducted three executive members into the ADC. Debojit, the party’s councillor from the South Tripura district, hoped that he would be inducted as the executive member of the ADC, which had no EMs from this district. But the party didn’t do that.
Delayed by the visit of the “interlocutor” and the party’s soft stand towards the BJP, there has been visible discontent among a section of the party workers. Also, they aren’t happy with the functioning style of the party, which is a one-man-run party where all decisions are taken by Pradyot himself. A section wants to ally with the BJP and this may be the reason that this section hasn’t been much active on the ground. These are not mere speculations. Pradyot himself had said that some leaders of the party want to go with the BJP and had even accused the saffron party of trying to break his party. Not everyone, particularly at the grassroots level, is happy with the party’s soft approach towards the BJP. A section of the grassroots workers of the party are anti-BJP. This has led to confusion at the lower level.
Party relies on Greater Tipraland demand again
Less than a year is left for the Lok Sabha elections. Before this, there would be a by-election in the Dhanpur seat, which was vacated by Union Minister Pratima Bhowmik. But the party’s grassroots organisation isn’t that active on the ground. To re-energise the party, Pradyot has called to re-ignite the movement for Greater Tipraland, a demand which isn’t properly defined by the party.
It seems that the party is banking again on the Greater Tipraland demand, which has produced fruitful results for them. It is also pressing the demand for the introduction of Roman script for the Kokborok language. These emotional issues are likely to dominate in the upcoming plenary session, which is going to set the party’s agenda for the near future.
Emotional issues don’t fetch desired votes every time. Exploiting the issue of Greater Tipraland to win elections repeatedly is unlikely to yield the desired results, particularly at a time when the common people living under Motha-ruled ADC are facing a severe crisis.
Sagarneel Sinha is a political commentator and tweets @SagarneelSinha. Views expressed are personal.
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