AGARTALA, Dec 5 ? Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) which fought the last Assembly elections in February as a Congress ally, is now trying hard to forge alliance with the BJP. An INPT delegation led by party general secretary Rabindra Debbarma has already left for Delhi to meet Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and other senior BJP leaders. Though Debbarma and his party colleagues maintained that they were going to the capital to press for more powers to the Tripura ADC ? autonomous state under Article 244A, sources in the INPT, however, confirmed that the main agenda to be discussed in Delhi would be an alliance with the BJP in Tripura.
A similar delegation led by INPT president and former militant leader Bijy Hrangkhawl met BJP heavyweights like M Venkaiah Naidu last month to discuss the alliance matter. But the Hrangkhawl-led INPT team had to return home crestfallen as there was no off hand assurance from the BJP.
?Our leaders told them categorically that matters relating to alliance with INPT have to be discussed at state level?, informed BJP state unit president Ronojay Deb. Deb sounded sceptical on the issue of alliance with the INPT since the tribal party was largely accused of having links with insurgent outfit NLFT. He seemed more critical about the INPT hardliners from the erstwhile TNV and INPFT. The INPT was formed last year after merger of three tribal outfits ? TUJS, IPFT and TNV reportedly at the instance of the NLFT militants who wanted a single umbrella organization for the Tripura tribals.
?If the TUJS section leaders like Shyamacharan Tripura, Nagendra Jamatia, Rabindra Debbarma want to ally with us, we have no problem because they are the saner section of the INPT who have a long history of politics in democratic set up. ?Others are of dubious political connections. Only last year Bijoy Hrangkhawl made statement in Geneva indirectly supporting the insurgents. He is also facing charges of sedition. He does not seem to have entirely shed off his past. We are not ready to ally with people like him?, was the sharp reaction from a senior BJP leader. ?Moreover?, he added, ?We do not support the inner line permit and autonomous state demand of INPT?.
INPT which suffered a vertical split in July last, lost the Tripura ADC to its breakaway group NSPT. The fissure in the INPT leadership more precisely between the TUJS section elders and TNV-IPPT section hardliners ? was also too conspicuous to ignore, which ultimately reduced the once powerful tribal party to virtually a rag-tag organization with senior leaders either joining the new outfit or getting ousted from the centrestage. Only recently Shyamacharan Tripura, most senior functionary of INPT and a TUJS veteran, was forced to relinquish his post as chairman of the party?s advisory committee and go on backstage.
?As an independent political entity sans any national partner INPT does not stand any prospect in Tripura politics. In view of the present condition of the Congress it is quite natural that the INPT would incline towards BJP. But the BJP also does not seem very keen to ally with INFT at least as long as it does not answer the accusations of playing second fiddle to the hand of the militants?, said a Tripura University professor.