11th Tripartite talk held on district creation issue in Manipur

Pertaining to the issue of the creation of seven new districts in Manipur, 11th round of Tripartite talk was held between the Manipur government, the United Naga Council (UNC) and the Centre at Senapati district headquarter recently.

During the talk, the Manipur government said that they will present the concrete proposal over the district creation issue in July this year, as per demanded by the UNC.

However, the UNC had shown disagreements after the state government failed to come up with a concrete proposal within the stipulated time period.

The meeting was presided over by the Centre and was headed by Satyendra Garg, Joint Secretary (NE), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), United Naga Council headed by President S. Kho John General secretary, S. Milan and others.

Satyendra Garg, the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs said, "The Government of Manipur stated that they were to bring the concrete proposal for discussion today but they mentioned that they were facing some problems like Citizenship amendment bill and etc so they could not bring in. They have suggested that we will come out with concrete proposals in July because of the election.

"They need more time but United Naga Council did not agree to that and they have said that enough time has been given so as the concrete proposal has not come, they will have to talk with the Naga people and will declare stand after discussion with the Naga people. They will communicate their views to the Government of India after discussion." Garg said.

"However, terming the lack of sincerity from the side of the State Government, UNC has given their stand that they will take into consideration the views of the Naga people and further communicate with the stakeholders before taking a concrete decision" Garg said.

S. Kyho John, the president of UNC added, "The United Naga Council will stand to the ground. We will go to our own source of action. We will go to our own force of action in protest or in demand of our rights and our issues of creation of new districts because it has been created not out of the demand of the people but was imposed on people."

The last round of the talk was held on September 1, 2018 in the Senapati district headquarters and the first round of Tripartite talks were held on March 19, 2017 to find a solution to the UNC's demand to revoke the decision of the previous government to create seven new districts in November 2016, bifurcating seven districts, two in the valley and five in the hills.

It is worth noting that the previous Government of Manipur had created seven new districts on December 8 2016, and in protest against that, the UNC had imposed 139 days of economic blockade along the national highways which pass through Manipur.