AFTER a not-so-happy marriage with the Congress, the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) is flirting with an idea to forge an alliance with the BJP. It had fought the last Assembly elections in February as a Congress ally and won six seats. An INPT delegation led by party general secretary Rabindra Debbarma reportedly met Prime Minister Vajpayee and other senior BJP leaders in the regard.  Earlier a delegation led by INPT president and former militant leader Bijay Hrangkhawl met BJP heavyweights like M Venkaiah Naidu to discuss the alliance. But the Hrangkhawl-led INPT team had to return home empty handed as there was no hand assurance from the BJP. “Our leaders told them categorically that matters relating to alliance with INPT have to be discussed at State level,’’ BJP state unit president Ronojoy Deb said.

He was sceptical on the issue of alliance with the INPT since the tribal party was largely accused of having links with insurgent outfit National Liberation Front of Tripura. During the February assembly polls, both the BJP and ruling CPI (M) had accused INPT of having links with the NLFT.  He was more critical about the INPT hardliners from the erstwhile TNV and INPFT.

“If the leaders like Shyamacharan Tripura, Nagendra Jamatia, Rabindra Debbarma want to ally with us, we have no problem because they belong to the moderate faction of the INPT who have been a part of the democratic set up for long.’’  “Others are of dubious political connections. Only last year Bijoy Hrangkhawl made a statement in Geneva indirectly supporting the insurgents. He is also facing charges of sedition. He has not shed his past entirely. We are not ready to ally with people like him,’’ Mr Deb said. “We also do not support the inner line permit and autonomous state demand of INPT,’’ he added. INPT, which suffered a vertical split in last July, lost the Tripura Tribal Autonomous District Council to its breakaway group NSPT.

The fissures in the INPT leadership more precisely between the former TUJS   and TNV-INPFT (commission) section 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 sidelined from the center stage. 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.

“INPT sans any national political party does not stand any prospect in Tripura politics. In the present situation 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 address the accusations of playing a second fiddle to the  the militants,’’ a Tripura University professor observed.

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