New Delhi: Barely 48 hours after a delegation of Tipra Motha met Union home minister Amit Shah, the Tripura-based regional party has announced the restart of its agitation to demand ‘Greater Tipraland’ from July 8.

Pradyot Debbarma, the party’s chief and the state’s royal scion, told reporters in Agartala that the delegation led by him presented its demands before the home minister and also conveyed to him the ‘restlessness’ being felt by the indigenous people of Tripura about the non-fulfillment of their plea.

What came across from his interaction with the media in Agartala on July 3 was that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is keen on Tipra Motha joining the state government. As per a NENow report, Debbarma said he would not repeat the “same mistake as IPFT (Indigenous People’s Forum of Tripura, another regional party and ally of the BJP) which had joined the government in 2018.

“They became ministers while we received nothing for five years,” he told reporters.

Debbarma told reporters that the delegation went to meet Shah with the single-minded focus of reiterating their demand of his community, the state’s tribal Tiprasas, for a separate state.

"If our demand is not met, we have all options open…and we have communicated this to them. Tiprasa people have been suffering for 70 years, and we (Tipra Motha) have made a commitment to them that we will not participate in the government until this commitment is fulfilled. Our primary demand is the formation of Greater Tipraland within the Constitution,” he said.

In March, Debbarma had told reporters that the home ministry would soon appoint an interlocutor to study and resolve the statehood demand of his party within three months. That central assurance had come from Shah after a meeting with Debbarma.

The July 3 NENow report quoted Debbarma as saying that the home minister conveyed to the delegation that the appointment of the interlocutor had been delayed due to the violence in Manipur.

In New Delhi, after meeting Shah on July 2, Debbarma told PTI, “Our agenda is very clear – a constitutional solution for Tipraland….we are interested in solving the genuine problems of the indigenous people. People are getting restless, and we need an early ending.”

Ahead of the Tipra Motha delegation's meeting with Shah, there was speculation within the political circles of Tripura that the party would likely join the state government. After the July 2 meeting, Debbarma tweeted, “As promised, we have not spoken about joining the government but on our demand. My loyalty remains with my people, those who had doubted me should realise that certain efforts are genuine in life.”

Tipra Motha came to power in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council in 2021 on the promise of fighting for a separate state for Tripura’s indigenous people, who became a minority in the state due to massive migration from East Pakistan during Partition and creation of Bangladesh.

In the last state elections, Tipra Motha contested in 42 seats for the first time, winning 13 of them to become the second largest party in the state assembly. Debbarma, however, refused to join the government till its primary demand of Greater Tipraland was not fulfilled by the Union government under Article 2 and 3 of the Constitution.

In 2021, hundreds of Tiprasas, led by Tipra Motha and IPFT, had staged a protest in New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar demanding statehood.

Greater Tipraland includes not just the autonomous district council areas but also those segments in the state that has a sizable Tiprasa population.

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