AGARTALA, Oct 6: With the TTAADC village committee elections over, Tipra Motha Party (TMP) chief Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma has urged the Centre to move ahead with the implementation of the Tiprasa accord, saying the indigenous people of Tripura had waited long for the agreement to be honoured.
The demand came a day after the NDA recorded a sweeping victory in the elections to 587 village committees across the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC). The polls, held for 4,594 seats, took place after a gap of nearly a decade. Official figures showed the TMP winning 4,328 seats, while the BJP secured 859 and its ally, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), won 33.
Thanking voters for supporting his party, Debbarma said the elections would pave the way for the restoration of elected village bodies across the tribal council areas after years without polls.
He said he had taken up the issue of holding the elections before the Tripura High Court and later the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court subsequently directed the State Election Commission to conduct the polls, which were eventually held after 10 years.
Debbarma said the next priority should be the implementation of the Tiprasa accord signed in March 2024 by the Centre, the Tripura government and the TMP to address development and other concerns of the state’s indigenous population.
According to Debbarma, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had assured him at a meeting in Delhi that the process of implementing the accord would commence after Durga Puja in the presence of Chief Minister Manik Saha.
“We hope the Centre to honour the commitment given to the people of tribal areas,” Debbarma said.
He said the indigenous population had been waiting for the accord to be implemented for years and warned that failure to fulfil the commitment could affect his ability to seek their support in the 2028 Assembly elections.
Debbarma also said the TMP was not against any community living in Tripura and stressed the importance of maintaining communal harmony in the state.
However, he sought protection of the legitimate rights of indigenous people, particularly their land rights, in the TTAADC areas. He cited similar safeguards available in other Sixth Schedule areas of the Northeast.
“We are not speaking against any community residing in our small state, but legitimate rights, including land rights, must be protected for the indigenous people in tribal council areas,” he said.
The TTAADC, which is governed by the TMP, covers nearly two-thirds of Tripura’s geographical area.
