Imphal/Guwahati:
A key tripartite meeting was held on Thursday between the Centre, the Manipur government, and the United Naga Council (UNC) over the Naga body’s demand for rollback of “arbitrarily created” seven districts.
A senior Manipur Home Department officer said that after the threadbare discussion in the meeting, it was mutually agreed that a proposal would be presented by the representatives of the state government in the next round of tripartite meetings, scheduled in April.
In Thursday’s meeting, held in Naga-dominated Senapati district, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) adviser for northeast affairs AK Mishra, Manipur Chief Secretary Prashant Kumar Singh, Home Commissioner N Ashok Kumar, and four Naga leaders including UNC chief NG Lorho and general secretary Vareiyo Shatsang were present.
The previous round of tripartite talks held on November 29 last year did not yield any result.
The seven districts were created under controversial circumstances in December 2016 by the then Congress government when O Ibobi Singh was chief minister. He was a three-term chief minister from 2002 to 2017.
The UNC, which is the top body of the Naga tribes in Manipur, had fiercely objected to the decision to create the new districts.
The UNC has said the seven new districts encroached upon ancestral lands of the Naga tribes.
It was also under Mr Ibobi’s Congress government in Manipur that Any Kuki Tribes (AKT) were included into the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category in 2003. The AKT is not a distinct tribe like the Thadou and many other tribes which are collectively known as Kuki.
The tripartite talks come at a time when the Kuki tribes and the Meiteis have been fighting since May 2023 over a range of issues such as land rights and political representation.
