TERMS IT AS BLANK CHEQUE FOR TERRITORIAL COUNCIL IN INTANGKI
Against the backdrop of general expectation of an impending settlement to the Naga political issue, Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC), held a meeting to deliberate on the matter at its extended executive committee meeting on October 29.
According to chairman communication department of NPCC, the party observed that the Naga political settlement has taken a paradigm shift-earlier from historical aspiration of sovereignty and integration of all contiguous Naga inhabited areas, to now, threatening Nagaland state with infiltration and division. NPCC reminded that Nagaland state was constituted as the 16th state of the Indian union on December 1,1963.
NPCC said the Framework Agreement (FA) signed on August 3,2015 at the PM’s residence “agreed to settle the political problem within union of India and that interstate boundaries shall not be changed”.
NPCC said this confirmed the claim and stand of the government of India, that “sovereignty and integration are non-negotiable.”
In the light of the above, NPCC said the Working Committee (WC) of the 7-member NNPGs also signed the Agreed Position (AP) with the government of India on November 17,2017 and that both parties had concluded talks for Nagaland on October 31,2019.
NPCC said while Naga stakeholders aspire for early solution and for one government and one tax; the state government, owing to its inability to enforce the law of the land, has instead chosen to “reverse the clock and adopt the route of compromise in the garb of facilitation.”
In this, NPCC said the Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) after ignoring all the agreements and talks for the past 24 years and the voice of the stakeholders, adopted a five-point resolution on August 3,2021, “demanding that the government of India resume talks.”
NPCC claimed there are enough hints on “carving out Territorial Council with Ntangki National Reserve Forest” and that the Nagaland Legislative Assembly resolution can be construed as “blank cheque approval to carve out Ntangki Territorial Council or otherwise.”
According to NPCC, only parliament as per Article 3, has authority to increase or decrease or alter state boundaries or rename names.
Therefore, considering all the above, the extended executive committee of NPCC resolved to demand that the NLA “withdraw the five-point resolution adopted on 3rd August, 2021.”