Agartala: In a significant political development, Mevar Kumar Jamatia, fisheries and tribal welfare minister in the Tripura cabinet has been unanimously elected as the new party supremo of the IPFT (Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura), the junior ally in the BJP-IPFT government on Sunday.
He succeeded octogenarian NC Debbarma, a senior minister in the state council of ministers, who is suffering from several old-age ailments. In the last year, Debbarma was shifted to the hospital several times for his illness and discharged after being cured.
The decisions came off at the party’s Central Committee meeting held at Dasarathdeb Smriti Bhavan here in Agartala. Apart from Jamatia, Dhananjoy Tripura and MLA Prasanta Debbarma were elected for the crucial posts of General Secretary. The other important positions in the party’s central committee will be filled up in due course of time, said Jamatia.
Addressing a news conference after the central committee meeting, Jamatia said, “I thank all my colleagues in the party for reposing their faith in me at a time our party is undergoing a tough situation. We have faced poll debacles one after another and the party’s position is not very good. But, the new team of IPFT is strong enough to revive its organisational base. We have got two young and dynamic leaders in the face of Prasanta Debbarma and Dhananjoy Tripura as the party’s general secretary.”
Reiterating the party’s core demand of separate statehood, the newly-elected President said, “ It is true that we are in alliance with the BJP but our ideology is different and at times we can take decisions independently. We feel separate statehood is the only solution to all the problems that the indigenous people of the state have been facing.”
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On the new changes, he said, “In the two-day state conference, we held elections for two posts—President and General Secretary. The other posts of the Central Committee are vacant, but within the next one or two weeks, the new committee will be announced.” According to Jamatia, every three years, state conferences are held to elect the party’s new central committee.
Noteworthy, IPFT has ridden to power by allying with the BJP. It bagged eight out of nine seats it contested in the tribal-dominated seats but the party drew a blank in the recently held TTAADC elections. The BJP, on several occasions, blamed the IPFT’s poor performance as a reason behind the defeat it faced in the polls of sixth schedule areas.
