AGARTALA: For the time in Tripura since 1952, the Tipra Motha Party (TMP), a tribal-based political outfit, scripted history in the recently-concluded Assembly polls by emerging as the principal opposition party with 13 seats, but its political flip-flops and gimmicks are now attracting sharp criticism from different quarters. On Friday’s poll to elect the new Assembly Speaker, all the 13 MLAs led by TMP’s legislative party leader Animesh Debbarma walked out from the House just before the beginning of the voting process, expressing their displeasure over a petty matter related to sitting arrangements in the House. TMP supremo Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman had earlier promised to support the joint candidate fielded by the CPI-M and the Congress, Gopal Chandra Roy. In fact, Deb Barma, who is also the incumbent leader of the opposition, was one of the proposers in Roy’s nomination paper. Hours after Deb Barman’s assurance to the Congress leaders, Home Minister Amit Shah had on Thursday informed him that the Centre would appoint an interlocutor by March 27 to study the “constitutional solutions” to TMP’s demands for more autonomy and socio-economic development of the tribals, who constitute one-third of Tripura’s 4 million populations. Political observers feel that...