BJP partner TIPRA Motha demands Bihar-like SIR in Tripura

The ruling BJP’s key ally in Tripura, TIPRA Motha, on Wednesday (July 23, 2025) met officials of the Election Commission of India in New Delhi to push for a Bihar-like Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the northeastern State. 

A delegation of the party, headed by its founder Pradyot Kishore Manikya, demanded an extensive survey to identify the illegal voters on the electoral rolls.

“We have been affected and will be more if measures are not in place to identify and deport foreigners. We find the SIR exercise effective in Bihar, and it should be undertaken in Tripura as well,” Mr. Manikya said. 

“Tripura and the entire northeast would suffer if we stayed silent on the infiltration of foreigners,” he stated. Mr. Manikya was joined by two Ministers in the State Cabinet – Animesh Debbarma and Brishaketu Debbarma, and the party’s firebrand MLA, Ranjit Debbarma. The BJP, which differs with the regional party on some issues, did not respond to the alliance partner’s latest move.

The TIPRA founder clarified that they would not stay silent and would continue to press the demand. He commented that the indigenous native people would become further marginalised if appropriate steps are not taken.

30-33% of the population of Tripura is of indigenous people. Twenty of the sixty Assembly seats are reserved for the tribal, while the tribal autonomous district council has a 95% reservation for the ST people. 

TIPRA Motha rose to the political landscape for its contentious Greater Tipraland demand, a theoretical State for the tribal people with areas carved out of Assam, Mizoram and even the hills of Bangladesh. The party has been getting support from the indigenous community in every election held over the past few years, but it has come under sharp criticism from the opposition CPI(M) and the Congress for not working for the development of the tribes, despite being in power in the autonomous district council and an alliance partner of the ruling coalition.