Agartala, July 23: Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), BJP's alliance partner in Tripura, has demanded creation of a full-fledged Tipraland.

A four-member IPFT delegation placed five-point charter of demands before Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Thursday.

The IPFT delegation led by Forest minister Mevar Kumar Jamatia demanded creation of full-fledged Tipraland covering TTAADC areas, submission of report of the high-level committee, special recruitment drive and amendment of Sixth Schedule for more empowerment to TTAADC.

The IPFT team in its memorandum to the Home Minister mentioned that the population of indigenous people had become a minority in their own native land.

“…. In order to protect the crisis of the identity of the Indigenous people of Tripura, we place strong demand for creation of full-fledged Statehood ‘TIPRALAND’ based on the 6th Schedule Areas i.e., TTAADC of Tripura,” the memorandum said.

The IPFT delegates held discussion on the High-Power Modality Committee formed for Socio-Economic-Cultural- Linguistic growth of the indigenous people and sought intervention of the Home Minister for quick submission of the report of the committee.

They also apprised the Home Minister that the state government had already sent a proposal of Rs. 8882 crore to the Centre for approval.

The IPFT delegation then demanded a special recruitment drive for filling up approximately 20,000 backlog vacancies (ST reserved).

The IPFT leaders also held discussion on amendment of Sixth Schedule of the Constitution and demanded to change over the nomenclature of TTAADC and to increase the strength of the council keeping parity with other District Councils of the North East Region.

In their meeting with Shah, the IPFT leaders raised another demand- inclusion of Kokborok in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

“Kokborok is the mother tongue and linguafranca of more than 90 percent Indigenous people of Tripura State and also one or the recognized Official language of the State. There is the long standing demand put forward by the indigenous people cutting across the different tribal communities of the State for inclusion of Kokborok in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution….”, the memorandum highlighted.

They requested the Home Minister to take initiative for enactment of the recommendation put forward by the state government without any delay. They also sought Roman script for Kokborok Language.

The three other members of the delegation were MLA Prashanta Debbarma, MLA Dhananjoy Tripura and MLA Jiten Debbarma. (With inputs from Tripura Times)