Agartala, September 3:
With no final agreement yet between ruling BJP and its alliance partner Tipra Motha over seat-sharing or a broader electoral understanding for the forthcoming Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) village committee elections, the junior partner has begun filing nominations for its candidates across tribal areas in Tripura.
The development comes despite several rounds of discussions between the two parties in Agartala and New Delhi, including a crucial meeting in Agartala a day ago involving senior BJP central leaders, including national general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh and Northeast in-charge Dr Sambit Patra, along with other senior leaders.
While negotiations between the NDA partners are understood to be continuing, Tipra Motha leaders and supporters on Thursday moved ahead with their electoral preparations, filing nominations at the Jampuijala RD Block office amid a large gathering of party workers and supporters.
A colourful rally accompanied the candidates as they arrived at the block office to submit their nomination papers. Several senior Tipra Motha leaders, including MLAs and MDCs, were present during the filing.
Takrajal MLA Biswajit Kalai said the village committee election was particularly significant after a gap of nearly a decade and expressed confidence that Tipra Motha would retain its dominance in the area.
Kalai said around 80-90 nominations were being filed from the Jampuijala RD Block and that the party would continue the process on the following day.
According to him, the block comprises 31 village committee seats across the Killa-Bagma, Takarjala and Golaghati areas, with a large majority of the seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes. He claimed Tipra Motha was confident of winning almost all the seats in the area.
The MLA also credited Tipra Motha supremo Pradyot Kishore Debbarma with pursuing the village committee elections through the courts.
The elections have assumed considerable political importance as village-level elected bodies have remained absent for around ten years. Motha leaders said the prolonged absence of elected representatives had affected grassroots development and the flow of funds for local works.
Another Motha leader, Apan Debbarma, said people in villages were particularly hopeful that the elections would restore development activities and improve access to funds for village-level works.
He said villagers were expecting long-pending issues involving roads, drinking water and electricity to receive greater attention after elected village committees are constituted.
The nomination process has begun even as the larger question of a BJP-Tipra Motha electoral understanding remains unresolved.
Tipra Motha, which joined the BJP-led government and became part of the NDA, has repeatedly maintained that electoral cooperation cannot come at the expense of its core political demands. Party supremo Pradyot Kishore Debbarma has particularly pressed for implementation of the Tripartite Agreement signed in March 2024, with issues concerning constitutional safeguards and land rights of indigenous people forming a central part of his position.
The disagreement over the implementation of these commitments has remained one of the key factors complicating a comprehensive electoral understanding between the two parties.
The issue assumes added significance because Tipra Motha demonstrated considerable electoral strength in the previous TTAADC election, sweeping 24 of the 28 seats where elections were held. The party therefore enters the village committee contest with an established organisational base in the tribal areas.
For the BJP, meanwhile, the elections represent an important organisational test in the state’s tribal belt, particularly as the party and Tipra Motha remain partners in the state government.
However, the latest nomination activity does not necessarily indicate that negotiations between the two NDA partners have collapsed. Discussions are reportedly continuing, with senior BJP leadership involved in the process.
There are also indications that Chief Minister Manik Saha and Motha supremo Pradyot Kishore Debbarma has been summoned to New Delhi amid the ongoing discussions, although the precise agenda and outcome of any such meeting were not immediately clear.
For now, the political situation presents a contrasting picture: negotiations for a BJP-Tipra Motha electoral understanding remain open at the leadership level, while Tipra Motha has already begun putting candidates on the ground.
The coming days are therefore likely to be crucial in determining whether the two ruling allies eventually arrive at a seat-sharing arrangement or enter the village committee elections separately.
