AGARTALA, May 1 (TIWN): The INPT game to try falsify the ensuing TTAADC elections in Tripura is well known in the same way as the erstwhile Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) falsified the May 2000 elections to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC).

In fact, it was the same IPFT that was rechristened as INPT after the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti (TUJS), erstwhile ally of the Congress party, merged with it. It was this usurpation of the ADC by the IPFT, with the help of NLFT, guns that prompted the Congress party to strike an alliance with the INPT, in a bid to hijack the ensuing TTAADC polls, said chief minister Manik Sarkar.

Addressing an election campaign rally at Dattaram area in Udaipur Chief Minister Manik Sarkar on Thursday said that IPFT was trying to influence the tribal youths with the slogan of Twipraland - a separate state model for indigenous populace of Tripura comprising areas under the jurisdiction of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC).

In yet another warning to corrupt party members and leaders, chief minister and CPI (M) politburo member Manik Sarkar said that the Left Front government would take stern step if any party worker was found involved in any kind of corruption. The Left Front government would not tolerate any corrupt person in the party. If any party worker is found his involvement in siphoning government funds, he would not be spared.

He added, “The IPFT is acting as political mask of the banned outfit- NLFT”.  The Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) came into being in the state under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution in 1987 to protect and safeguard the tribals who form one-third of the state's population. 

The creation of ADC was the product of a long and arduous struggle, led by the Left Front and joined by the state tribal and non-tribal people together. Among other things, the ADC was also to bridging the ethnic and economic divide between the two major communities of Tripura, he mentioned.