Tripura’s ruling BJP alliance tribal-based party, Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) on Thursday announced a 12 hours strike in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) area on December 5 next demanding separate Tipraland state, opposing the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 in Tripura and for immediately filling the various vacant seats in Village Committee in TTAADC through by-election.
IPFT assistant general secretary Mangal Debbarma announced this during a press conference in Agartala on Thursday.
According to the IPFT leader, more than 1500 seats in Village Committee in TTAADC are lying vacant since the BJP-IPFT alliance came to power in early March but in spite of repeatedly asking the State Election Department to fill up these seats through bi-election, till date there has been no such initiative.
He added that IPFT and its other alliance organizations are going to send more than 1000 of its supporters to Delhi in the second week of December for agitating there to raise its demand for separate Tipraland state in the ongoing Winter Session of the Parliament.
Debbarma, also the spokesperson of the party in presence of the IPFT vice president Ananta Debbarma and other central committee members announced that besides the agitation programme at Delhi, the IPFT leadership shall also try to meet the Prime Minister and Home Minister on the issue.
The IPFT leader also announced that since its coalition partner BJP has not discussed on the seat-sharing of the coming general election and already declared to contest alone from both the parliamentary seats, so in such a situation his party also have no other option but to contest from both the seats.
Debbarma also viewed that in the hill areas of the State, IPFT has strong organization and if it contests alone also it shall get the mass vote, however, he accepted that in the plain areas IPFT does not have much acceptance.