Tripura: A year after breaching Left citadel, BJP facing tribal backlash

Last March, just days after the BJP-led alliance unseated the Left front government in Tripura that had been in power for 25 years, an 11-foot-tall statute of Russian communist revolutionary Lenin was toppled in a town, Belonia, little away from the capital Agartala. The then Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy had tweeted in support of it. BJP’s Northeast in-charge Ram Madhav too tweeted hailing the act, but later deleted it.

With that began the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) government’s “Chalo Paltai” (Let’s Topple) — BJP’s slogan for the state Assembly elections — mission in Tripura.

A year later, the alliance is facing a major churn within the state that has witnessed sporadic violence over a host of issues including the Citizenship Amendment Bill, and people accusing the government of going back on promises made before the elections. For instance, the BJP had promised “one employment opportunity to every household.” However, after coming to power, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said the BJP never promised government jobs to all unemployed youths. The jobless youths were more hurt by the CM’s frivolous suggestion that they should stop running after government jobs and rather set up “paan shops or get into cow-rearing”.

BJP’s march into Tripura

Ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections, the BJP formed an alliance with the IPFT with the promise of setting up a committee to look into the latter’s demand for a separate state. The BJP went on to win 36 seats in the 60-member Assembly while its junior partner got eight seats.

The IPFT, a regional outfit, came into being in 2009 with the demand for a separate tribal state of Tipraland carved out of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC). While the tribal-dominated autonomous council constitutes two-third of the state’s territory, tribals form one-third of the state’s population.

Earlier, the state had been a witness to a long-drawn insurgency movement spurred by the demand for Tipraland. As a result of the decades-long agitations, the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council was created in 1979. It was later granted powers under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. Even though the armed hostilities have come down over the years, the demand for Tipraland continues.

There has been major disgruntlement among the indigenous tribal population of Tripura for being outnumbered by the influx of non-tribal refugees, mostly Bengali Hindus as well as Muslims from erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). This is why Tripura is often cited in the region as an example of migration altering the demography of a state. Even during the anti-citizenship bill protests in Assam and elsewhere in the Northeast, leaders from various ethnic outfits often invoked the Tripura example where the tribal population has been reduced to a minority.

The historical chasm between tribal inhabitants of the state and non-tribal settlers seems to have only grown with the BJP’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill.

Growing rift between BJP and IPFT

The alliance started showing cracks amid allegations of BJP’s one-upmanship. The IPFT, which itself is facing public ire for failing to protect the interest of tribals, is now contesting the two Lok Sabha seats in the state separately. Many within the IPFT lament that the BJP has been working against the interests of indigenous people through the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

The BJP, which has been claiming it will win at least 20 of the 25 seats in the Northeast with the help of its allies, is now forced to say that the Lok Sabha elections in Tripura will be a friendly fight since the IPFT has clearly said it would remain part of the BJP-led government.

Early signs of trouble started showing in September last year when the BJP and the IPFT contested the panchayat by-elections separately. Interestingly, 96 per cent of the seats were won uncontested by the BJP, as the opposition candidates accused the BJP of preventing them from filing their nominations. Even the IPFT alleged that the BJP forced elected representatives to resign besides not allowing candidates to submit their nomination papers.

But that was not the first time the IPFT started rebelling against its alliance partner. In March last year, not even a month after the alliance took office in Tripura, the IPFT’s youth wing held a hunger strike against the lack of initiative by the BJP on IPFT’s demand for a separate state.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the IPFT announced its own candidates after talks on seat-sharing with the BJP failed. According to IPFT president NC Debbarma, the party had asked BJP to give it one of the two seats to contest. But the senior alliance partner refused. “It will be a friendly fight in Tripura. We are still part of the government and it is for the BJP to decide whether they want to continue their alliance with us,” Debbarma said.

BJP’s loss is Congress’s gain

In a series of latest setbacks, 400 supporters and activists of the IPFT led by its senior vice-chairperson Kritimohan Tripura joined the Congress on April 2. The development comes after three women leaders of the IPFT joined the Congress two days before that.

According to Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Pradyot Kishore Mankya Debburman the IPFT women leaders joined the Congress over BJP’s betrayal and the treatment meted out to tribals in the name of statehood.

“People believed that ‘Tipraland’ will be formed. But they were fooled and cheated. Some leaders, who are members of the state cabinet, have cheated their own people,” Debburman said.

While major political parties of the state, including the ruling BJP, the Congress and the CPI-M, have rejected the demand for Tipraland, the latest batch of defectors too have opposed the tribal party’s demand for a separate state.

“Our leaders cheated us. We have understood that this demand is no longer practical,” Kritimohan Tripura told reporters, adding that they have decided to join Congress as it has assured development of indigenous people.

The Congress, meanwhile, has promised all tribal parties to introduce Kokborok (lingua franca of most of Tripura’s tribal population) in 8th Schedule of the Constitution, ensure direct funding to Tripura ADC and scrap the citizenship bill.

The Lok Sabha polls in the two seats in the state will be held on April 11 and April 18.