All-party team should visit Manipur: P.A. Sangma

SHILLONG - With the growing demand for President’s Rule in Manipur, former Lok Sabha speaker Purno A. Sangma Sunday suggested that an all-party delegation should visit the state to ascertain the ground situation.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Naga groups have demanded the dismissal of the Ibobi Singh-led Secular Progressive Front government for not allowing Naga separatist leader T. Muivah to visit his ancestral village of Somdal in Ukhrul district in northern Manipur.

“An all-party team should visit Manipur to take stock of the ground situation and later should submit their findings to the centre for action,” Sangma told IANS.

Terming the recent firing incident at Mao Gate in Manipur as “unfortunate”, Sangma said it was ust another glaring misuse of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

“The unwarranted firing occurred due to complete mishandling of the situation by the law-enforcers,” he said.

On May 6, three students were killed and about 70 injured in clashes between security forces and supporters of NSCN (I-M) leader T. Muivah.

“Ibobi should have requested Muivah to defer his visit to his home town if there was an apprehension of the law and order situation in view of the autonomous district council elections,” Sangma said.

“According to my personal view, Muivah has the right to visit his birth place since peace talks are on between the centre and the NSCN-IM,” he added.

However, the NCP leader expressed his reservation on invocation of President’s Rule in trouble-torn Manipur and said “the present situation does not warrant imposition of Article 356.”

“I have always been against use of Article 356 to dismiss a democratically elected government and we should always try to avoid that,” Sangma said.

The NSCN-IM is operating a ceasefire with New Delhi since 1997 with the two sides holding close to 60 rounds of peace talks aimed at ending one of India’s longest running insurgencies.

The Manipur government maintains the ceasefire with the NSCN-IM does not extend beyond Nagaland and hence Muivah’s visit to Manipur was not acceptable.

The NSCN-IM had earlier demanded that all Naga-inhabited areas in the northeast, including Manipur, be integrated by slicing off parts of three neighbouring states to unite 1.2 million Nagas and create a Greater Nagaland.

The demand is strongly opposed by the states of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.