“I will be with you as long as I am well,” Pradyot Debbarma said. (File)
Khumulwng, Tripura:
Tipra Motha chief Pradyot Debbarma, a scion of the Tripura princely family, on Sunday said through a social media post that he will no longer be the chairman of the party but will remain an “ordinary party member and warrior”.
In the statement, he said, “As my two-year term as the chairman of the TIPRA Motha Party comes to an end, I am no longer seeking reappointment, and as per our amended constitution, the president shall be the supreme steering post in the party. Hon’ble B K Hrangkhawl will continue to lead the party as the president of TIPRA Motha, and I will now be serving the party as a party member and a warrior!” “I thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to serve the party and the community. I don’t believe in family politics; hence, no member of my family will be taking any post in the organisation. Let’s work for the movement and not individual positions,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Debbarma, while addressing the Tipra Motha’s first plenary session, urged the leaders of Tripura’s main opposition party to give him relief as he is tired and wants to have his own family.
“For the past five and a half years, I have been working for the Tiprasa people by spending money from my own pocket. Now, I am tired… I want to have a family and I also have an aged mother. Constitute committees and carry forward your movement under the leadership of president B K Hrangkhawl,” he said.
“I will be with you as long as I am well,” he said.
Debbarma claimed that the Greater Tipraland state as demanded by it will secure the future of the indigenous people.
He also sought more funds for the tribal majority area in the northeastern state.
“The demand of achieving Greater Tipraland has been raised as it will secure the interest of Tiprasa (indigenous) people. I was the president of the state Congress and in charge of Sikkim but I decided to step down on the NRC issue,” he said at Khumulwng, 20 km away from the state capital Agartala.
Debbarma’s assertion came days after he met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on July 1 and urged him to bring a “constitutional solution” to its demand for ‘Greater Tipraland’.
He had also discussed with Shah and BJP president JP Nadda on this issue after the swearing-in ceremony of the saffron party-led government here in March.
The concept of ‘Greater Tipraland’ has not been specified, though it is supposed to include parts of several other northeastern states and Bangladesh, besides Tripura.
Debbarma, who is a descendant of Tripura’s former royal family, formed the Tipra Motha after resigning from the Congress in 2019. The regional party now has 13 MLAs in the 60-member assembly in the BJP-ruled state.
Attacking the state government, Debbarma alleged that the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) area which is two-thirds of the state territory and is the home to the tribals, gets only a meagre portion of the state’s annual budget.
“Altogether 15 lakh Tiprasa people live in the TTAADC area. Only 2.70 per cent of fund is sanctioned for 35 per cent of people while 65 per cent of the population get 98 per cent of the state’s budget. It is not Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas, but discrimination,” he alleged.
‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ (With all, development for all) is a slogan of the BJP.
Laying emphasis on strengthening the organisation, Debbarma asked party leaders to arrange zonal-level plenary sessions by the next one month and be prepared to face elections to the Village Committees and the TTAADC.
In the TTAADC election held in April 2021, Tipra Motha bagged 18 of the 28 seats that went to polls and the ruling BJP is in the opposition in the Council.
Asserting that the Tipra Motha is neither with the BJP-led NDA nor the Congress-headed UPA, he urged the party leaders to put pressure on the Centre to achieve Greater Tipraland.
Debbarma said, without elaboration, the party’s leaders must take a lead role in eliminating contractor raj or syndicate raj without elaboration.
“We have to check corruption as the funds are sanctioned for the welfare of Tiprasa people,” he said.
Tipra Motha’s constitution was adopted at the plenary session. Interestingly, the constitution says there should be a ‘president’ in the party, but it has no provision for having a ‘chairman’.
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