Agartala, Aug 24 (IANS): In a major setback for the ruling BJP in Tripura, top tribal leader Hangsha Kumar Tripura on Tuesday joined the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance, a major tribal-based opposition party.

Accompanied by around 6,500 tribals belonging to tje BJP and its ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), Hangsha Kumar joined the TIPRA at a public rally held at Manikpur in northern Tripura.

TIPRA supremo and Tripura's former royal scion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman among others addressed the public gatherings attended by thousands of tribal men and women.

Hangsha Kumar is currently the opposition leader of the 30-member Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), which is considered as a mini-Legislative Assembly. The BJP has nine members in the TTAADC, which was captured by the TIPRA in the April 6, 2021 elections.

When TIPRA captured the politically important TTAADC last year, it became the fourth big political force after the CPI-M led Left, the Congress and the BJP in Tripura leading a significant political development ahead of the 2023 assembly polls.

Constituted in 1985 under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, the TTAADC has jurisdiction over two-thirds of Tripura's 10,491 square km area and is home to over 12,16,000 people, of which around 84 per cent are tribals.