Agartala, Oct. 21: The Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura submitted a three-point charter of demands in tribal interest to Union minister of state for planning and parliamentary affairs V. Narayanaswamy today.

With the Autonomous District Council (ADC) polls barely six months away, a five-member INPT delegation, met Narayanaswamy, who is also the AICC general secretary, in Delhi.

The delegation, headed by party general secretary Rabindra Debbarma, submitted a memorandum demanding further empowerment of the ADC, inclusion of Kokborok language in the Eighth Schedule and amendment of the Forest Rights Act.

Debbarma said, “We met Union home secretary G.K. Pillai yesterday and V. Narayanaswamy this morning. They said the state government was yet to put forward a formal proposal for amending the Sixth Schedule and the ADC Act to make the autonomous body more powerful.”

He alleged that the Left Front had been using the ADC as a “rubber stamp” to force its own agenda on tribals since the council’s inception in January 1982 and subsequent extension of the Sixth Schedule.

“We have strongly protested this and pointed out that departments which should be run by the ADC have not yet been handed over to the autonomous body even though the Left Front had committed before the 2000 council polls. The proposal unanimously passed by the Assembly in March 2006 for empowerment of the council has also not been implemented,” said Debbarma.

The INPT has demanded that the power and status accorded to the Bodo Territorial Council (BTC) in Assam should be replicated for the ADC in Tripura.

CPM sources described the move as part of the party’s efforts to “revive it from moribund state”.

“The ADC election is near and the INPT leaders know they will not win a single seat. Hence this journey to Delhi to keep its link with the Congress for money,” said Gautam Das, a senior CPM leader.