Agartala, Nov 8: One more legislator of Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), an ally of ruling BJP, resigned from the Assembly on Tuesday.
Mevar Kumar Jamatia, who had been the Forest and Tribal Welfare minister in BJP-IPFT government, was earlier dropped as minister due to internal feud in his own party.
State assembly speaker, Ratan Chakraborty said that the resignation of Mr Jamatia was accepted.
The former legislator said that he would soon decide about his next course of action.
Sources close to him said that he would join TIPRA Motha, a newly floated tribal based party, headed by royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarma, which swept the last elections for the 30-member Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) held last year.
Debbarma told reporters that he would welcome Mr Jamatiya if he wanted to join his party. His wife Gita Debbarma joined the TIPRA Motha recently.
The 53-year-old Jamatia, who was elected from the Asharambari Assembly constituency in Khowai district in the 2018 polls, is the third IPFT MLA to quit the Assembly since last year.
On October 14, IPFT MLA Dhananjoy Tripura, accompanied by TIPRA supremo Deb Barman, submitted his resignation letter to the Speaker, who immediately accepted it.
Dhananjoy Tripura and a few other leaders of different political parties, later joined TIPRA. IPFT MLA Brishaketu Debbarma also resigned from the Assembly in June last year and joined the TIPRA.
With the resignation of Jamatia, the IPFT’s strength reduced to five from eight.
He is the seventh MLA of the BJP-IPFT ruling alliance to quit. Earlier BJP MLAs Burba Mohan Tripura, Ashis Das, Sudip Roy Barman, and Ashis Kumar Saha also quit the party and the Assembly after open differences with then Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb.
Das joined the Trinamool Congress last year but quit it in May this year while Roy Barman, also a former BJP Minister, and Saha joined the Congress in February this year.
Burba Mohan Tripura, also a tribal leader, joined TIPRA, which is now ruling the politically-important Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC).
After the resignation of the legislator the strength of the ruling BJP still has absolute majority in the Assembly with 34 MLAs from BJP and five from the IPFT.
Earlier, another lawmaker of the party, Brishaketu Debbarma was declared disqualified by the speaker, who later joined Tipra Motha.
