Tripura's Tribal Belt Could See A New Force Rise Against BJP-Motha Combine After Patal Kanya's Ouster

This week, the Tripura unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expelled one of its vice-presidents, Patal Kanya Jamatia, a tribal woman leader from the Jamatia tribe. Her expulsion came a day after she formed a new party called the Tripura People’s Socialist Party (TPSP). While announcing her new party, she stated that it was an extension of her NGO, the Tripura People’s Front (TPF) — a socio-political organisation — and that it would work under the BJP’s banner. However, her "clarification" failed to convince the BJP, which swiftly expelled her from the party.

It is worth mentioning that Patal Kanya Jamatia and her TPF supporters joined the BJP in 2022, ahead of the 2023 state assembly polls. She was projected as a tribal face by the saffron party to counter Pradyot Debbarma and his TIPRA Motha party. After joining, Jamatia, known for her strong criticism of her former political ally Pradyot, began campaigning for the BJP in the hills, even facing protests from Motha supporters.

She later contested as a BJP candidate from the Ampinagar (ST) assembly constituency but lost to Motha’s Pathan Lal Jamatia. After the BJP formed the government for a second term, she was appointed chairman of the Tripura Rehabilitation Plantation Corporation (TRPC).

However, the political scenario in the state, particularly in the hills, underwent a significant shift following TIPRA Motha’s entry into the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the BJP. As a result, Motha was granted a cabinet minister and a minister of state in the state government led by Manik Saha.

With Motha now in the NDA, the BJP’s focus on the hills diluted. This change rendered Patal Kanya Jamatia less valuable to the party, and since then, her discontent with the BJP had been on the rise. Moreover, in an effort to maintain coalition harmony, the BJP began sidelining the critics of Pradyot, including former state minister Rampada Jamatia, former Lok Sabha MP Rebati Tripura, and Patal Kanya Jamatia. During the Lok Sabha polls, she even called Pradyot a “political broker” and refused to support the BJP’s Tripura East candidate, Kriti Devi Debbarma — Pradyot’s elder sister — calling her "an agent of the political broker".

As mentioned in a previous column, the BJP, which has struggled to dominate in the hills, has no option but to rely on Pradyot’s Motha to prevent the resurgence of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), in the tribal belt, once a communist stronghold. In doing so, the BJP has alienated anti-Pradyot voices within the party — a move that was unacceptable to Patal Kanya Jamatia, who accused the BJP of ignoring her TPF supporters and playing into Pradyot’s hands.

Patal Kanya Jamatia is a fiery tribal leader with some support in the tribal belt, where a political vacuum was created following Motha’s entry into the NDA. This presents an opportunity for her party to tap into anti-BJP and anti-Motha sentiments in the hills.

Jamatia's choice of the word 'Socialist' to describe her TPSP is interesting. The last tribal party to use the term Socialist' to describe itself was the Nationalist Socialist Party of Tripura (NSPT), which eventually became an ally of the CPI(M)-led Left Front.

Biren Singh's Governance In Free Fall As Police Fail To Contain Arms Loot Cases

This week, another angry mob looted arms from a police station in the Ukhrul district of Manipur, a state still reeling from last year's ethnic violence between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zomis. During the early days of the conflict, mobs from both the Meitei and Kuki-Zomi communities looted arms from police stations. Although security forces eventually became more vigilant and prevented further loot attempts, this latest case raises concerns about the security apparatus’s alertness.

The latest arms loot in Ukhrul highlights the state government’s failure to maintain security. The incident followed a violent clash between two Naga-dominated villages — Hunphun and Hungpung — which left four people dead, including a Manipur Rifles jawan. The clash stemmed from the choice of a disputed site for a Swachh Bharat Abhiyan event on Gandhi Jayanti by a youth organisation from Hungpung, which was opposed by villagers from Hunphun. This dispute between the two villages is nearly a century old.

The clash also showed that the N Biren Singh government had failed to contain violence in the state. Given the long-standing dispute between the villages and the upcoming social initiative, the government should have been proactive in preventing the clash. Additionally, the failure of the security forces to prevent the arms loot underscores another failure of the Biren Singh government, which needs to improve its response to such situations.

The government is accountable to the public for both the violent clash and the arms loot. It is unfortunate that while the BJP-led state government under Biren Singh struggles to control the violence, the Union Home Ministry under Amit Shah has not taken strong action against the state government.

Will ZPM Consolidate Its Strength Among Hmars?

This week, the Mizoram State Election Commissioner, H Lalthlangliana, announced that the Sinlung Hills Council (SHC) polls would be held on November 5. The council, comprising 12 constituencies across 31 villages in the Hmar-dominated areas of northeastern Mizoram, represents one of the ethnic minorities in the Mizo-dominated state.

In the last SHC polls, the MNF and Hmar People’s Convention (HPC) alliance won the council by securing 10 seats, while independents won the remaining two. However, the council underwent a political shift after the HPC joined forces with the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) ahead of last year’s state assembly polls, and it is now ruled by the ZPM-HPC coalition.

For the ZPM, led by Lalduhoma, which made history last year by breaking the long-standing power cycle between Congress and the MNF, the SHC polls present an opportunity to consolidate its strength in the Hmar-dominated areas. Despite the alliance with the HPC, the ZPM failed to win the two Hmar-dominated seats—Serlui and Tuivawl—from the MNF, which had allied with the HPC (Reformation). However, ZPM managed to win the Hmar-dominated Chalfilh seat from the MNF.

The scenario shifted during the Lok Sabha polls when the ZPM took the lead in three Hmar-dominated seats. The challenge now is for the party to maintain the expansion it achieved during the Lok Sabha polls. As the ruling party, ZPM holds an advantage in the upcoming SHC polls. The ZPM-HPC alliance was reaffirmed this week, with ZPM contesting eight seats and HPC contesting the remaining four.

The author is a political commentator.

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