ADC elections in Tripura
GUWAHATI: The Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), the junior ally in the Tripura government, has said it would forge an alliance with the ruling BJP in the upcoming Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections only if a satisfactory seat-sharing formula was worked out.
The ruling party, for its part, had apparently expressed its readiness to stitch up an alliance with IPFT in the TTAADC polls which are likely to be held in the first half of May, 2020. The period of the
Speaking to The Shillong Times on Monday, IPFT spokesperson, Mangal Debbarma said that discussions in regard to the possibility of forging an alliance in the autonomous district council polls were going on and that the tie-up would mainly hinge on how the 28 seats were shared between the two parties.
Elections to the 30-member autonomous district council in the state would be held in 28 seats while the remaining two seats would be filled up by members nominated by the Governor in accordance with the advice of the state administration.
“As it is, we are ready to field candidates in all the 28 seats if at all we are to go alone in the polls. However, since the seat-sharing aspect is yet to be discussed threadbare, we cannot say that we will have a tie up or not. We will stitch up an alliance only if an acceptable seat sharing formula is worked out in the coming days,” Debbarma said.
The IPFT leader recalled that since the 2018 Assembly elections, the party had tried to forge alliances with the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha and panchayat polls. “However, the ruling party had not responded properly then,” he said.
The TTAADC constitutes two-thirds of Tripura’s 10,491 square kilometre area, and home to over 12, 16,000 people. The tribal council is run by the Opposition Left Front which secured all the 28 seats in the 2015 elections.
IPFT general secretary and state minister, Mevar Kumar Jamatia had said that his party was not ruling out the possibility of forging an alliance with BJP even as he insisted on contesting in maximum number of seats.
