Agartala, April 30: The tribal-based Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) has decided to throw open its gates to non-tribals for membership.
An amendment of the party constitution required for facilitating membership of non-tribals was passed by the party?s plenum on April 22. The crucial decision will be formally announced on May 3.
Already 65 non-tribal families have enrolled themselves as members of the INPT in Gandacherra sub-division while the response in other areas is also ?very encouraging?.
INPT general secretary Rabindra Debbarma said, ?We have taken a decision but whether the non-tribals will be enrolled in the front organisation or in the main party is yet to be decided.? He, however, added that the issue would be resolved before May 3.
Asked if the Congress initiative to regain its lost tribal base had prompted the INPT to reverse its decision on confining party membership to tribals alone, Debbarma said his party was not unduly worried over the issue. ?We are merely responding to changed circumstances. There was a time when membership had to be restricted to the tribal community alone. But now it is different.?
A source in the INPT said the party was still weighing the pros and cons of the issue though the majority had supported the decision to open membership to non-tribals.
The source said the former Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS) had emerged as the first tribal-based regional party in Tripura in 1967. ?The TUJS had confined membership only to tribals and subsequently other regional parties that came up through fragmentation of the TUJS followed the same policy,? the source said.
According to the source, even when the INPT was formed by the merger of the TUJS and INPT in 2002, the policy remained the same.
A source said decimation of the INPT in successive elections and the Congress?s recent drive to strengthen its tribal base had induced a rethinking in the INPT leadership. ?They decided to induct non-tribals still living in hilly areas and that is why the change in policy,? a source said.
