Separate state demand in Tripura opposed

AGARTALA: Major political parties in Tripura have opposed the demand for a separate state by carving out Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomus District Council (TTAADC), which was raised in the aftermath of the announcement on Telangana.

Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), which made the demand recently, has said the declaration on Telangana had given it encouragement for a new tribal state.

Tripura Finance Minister Badal Chowdhury blamed the Congress-led UPA government for conceding the demand for Telengana to increase its vote banks before the parliamentary elections. This in turn was influencing small tribal parties to demand separate states.

Secretary of the ruling CPI-M, Bijan Dhar said the demand for a separate state carved out of Tripura was "irrelevant" as the interests of the tribals were well protected and they would always remain so under the Left Front government.

"We will leave no stone unturned to resist this divisive demand," he told reporters here today.

Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura, the non-left major tribal based party and an electoral ally of opposition Congress has opposed the demand as being "divisive".

Opposing the demand, spokesman for Congress Ashok Sinha said the party does not support it "at all" because it was secessionist and not physically possible.

"TTADC constitutes two-third of Tripura's territory and is spread in all its districts and if it is carved out of it, the original state will have no existence," he told PTI.

IPFT, he claimed, had only 200 supporters in the state and had raised the demand for its narrow political interest by fuelling tribalism which is not acceptable in the state.

When contacted, IPFT general secretary Aghore Debbarma said a massive campaign had been launched in the tribal-dominated areas for a separate state as TTADC in its present form has failed to safeguard the tribal interests.

The party would organise a rally here on August 23 in support of its statehood demand and leaders of other states who have raised statehood demands had also been invited by the outfit.

TTAADC came into being in 1985 to protect and safeguard the socio-economic and political interests of the tribals, who form one third of the state's 37 lakh population.