The Weekend Leader - BJP ally IPFT in Tripura oppose scraping of Article 370

BJP ally IPFT in Tripura oppose scraping of Article 370

Agartala

05-August-2019

The Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), the junior ally of the BJP-led Tripura government, on Monday opposed Union Home Minister Amit Shahs proposal seeking to scrap Article 370 which gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Tripura's oldest non-Left tribal-based party, Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), also opposed Union Home Minister's proposal to revoke Article 370.

"We strongly oppose Home Minister Amit Shah's proposal seeking to axe Article 370 of the Constitution," IPFT President and Tripura's Revenue and Fisheries Minister Narendra Chandra Debbarma told IANS.

He said: "The IPFT always wants to continue both Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitutions to accord special powers to Jammu and Kashmir. We want to maintain the status-quo on both the important provisions of the constitutions."

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday proposed to scrap Article 370 of the Constitution which gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir and said that the state will be split into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir with an Assembly and Ladakh without one. 

Debbarma said that they would soon write a letter to the Central government not to knife Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution.

The IPFT, a tribal-based local party, has been agitating since 2009 for a separate state to be carved out by upgrading the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), which has jurisdiction of over two-thirds of Tripura's 10,491 sq km area, home to over 12,16,000 people.

IPFT, which had forged an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the February 2018 Assembly polls, has two ministers in the 8-member council of ministry headed by Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and has eight legislators in the 60-member state Assembly. 

Opposition INPT, which with the merger of several tribal based parties including Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS formed in 1967) was constituted in 2002, leaders said that if the centre scraps Article 370 and Article 35A, it would hurt the sentiments of the majority of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. 

"Status-quo must be maintained on the Article 370 and Article 35A of the constitutions to avoid any further troubles," INPT General Secretary Jagadhish Debbarma told IANS.

Leaders of Congress and Communist Party of India-Marxist refused to comment on the issue, saying that their central leaders would react on scraping of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.-IANS



Milky Mist Cheese