Agartala, Jan. 10: The latest round of Naga talks in New Delhi has already led to demands for similar parleys with outfits in Tripura, but these are mostly from poll-bound political parties rather than the militants themselves. While the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) has blamed the ruling Left Front for lacking a will to end insurgency, the party in power said there was little it could do, given the fact that the banned outfits had spurned past offers.
The Opposition INPT, which reportedly has links with the banned National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), has demanded initiation of a dialogue with the proscribed All-Tripura Tiger Force and the NLFT, the two major militant outfits in the state.
Senior INPT leader and executive member (rural development) of the Autonomous District Council, Mulukchand Debbarma, today said that the demands of the outfits in Tripura could definitely be discussed.
He blamed the ruling Left Front for insurgency in the state and for keeping alive the ethnic rift between tribals and non- tribals.
Debbarma said if the Congress-INPT formed the government after the Assembly elections, a dialogue with the militants would be the prime item on the agenda.
The ruling CPM has washed its hands of the issue, saying the outfits had not responded to repeated appeals for talks.
Senior CPM leader Ranjan Dhar today said: “During the past five years, chief minister Manik Sarkar has made a series of appeals to the militants. He has even said that if they (the rebels) were keen to talk to the Centre, the state government would not stand in the way. But the rebels never responded.”
Dhar blamed the congress-INPT combine for working in tandem with the banned militants to destabilise the Left Front government.