Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra
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Leader | Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl |
Founded | 2002 |
Headquarters | Tripura, India |
Student wing | Twipra Students Federation |
Ideology | Tripuri nationalism |
The Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra is a political party in the Indian state of Tripura. INPT is led by Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl (former guerrilla leader of the Tripura National Volunteers).
The INPT was formed as a merger of the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura and the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti in 2002.
The formation of the INPT was pushed through after pressure from the underground National Liberation Front of Tripura, who wanted to unite all tribal nationalist forces in a single party. The INPT is commonly seen as the political branch of NLFT.
As IPFT had a majority in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, INPT came to govern that institution until 2003.
INPT suffered a serious setback in the summer of 2003, when a group of TTAAADC members under the leadership of Hiren Tripura broke away and formed the National Socialist Party of Tripura. One high-ranking INPT leader, Shyamcharan Tripura, took the side of the dissidents. NSPT were able to, with support from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) members in TTAADC, to win a majority in the assembly and INPT formed the opposition.
In the state assembly elections in 2003 INPT was allied with the Indian National Congress. INPT launched 18 candidates and Congress 42. Six INPT candidates were elected, and in total the party received 189 186 votes. The elections were won by the Left Front. Now as in 2012, INPT has only one MLA
Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 INPT joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance. INPT supported the Nationalist Trinamool Congress and BJP candidates in the election.