Standing assurance from Rajnath : Politicising Framework Agreement
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 21 2017 -

What exactly is the Framework Agreement signed between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) back in 2015 ?

Is it just a framework, into which the agreed terms and conditions will be put in or is it something else, elaborating on the finer aspects of the final pact that will be signed between the outfit and New Delhi ?

All speculations, and while no one knows what exactly is the Framework Agreement, it is has not stopped the Congress to whip the BJP with this pact in the run up to the Assembly election.

The election is obviously important to the BJP and the Congress and since the Congress has gone the extra mile to centre its campaign around the Framework Agreement, the BJP needed to do something and remove the suspicion from the people’s mind and this can be seen in the public announcement by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh that the Framework Agreement will not in any way affect the integrity of Manipur.

It is also important to note that the All Manipur Students’ Union (AMSU) has launched a drive to pressure the Centre to spell out the details of the Framework Agreement.

The assurance of the Home Minister is noted and should be acknowledged, but it would have helped a lot more if only he had taken the trouble to explain why the Framework Agreement needs to be kept under such a veil of secrecy.

A plausible explanation would have really helped the cause of the BJP ahead of the Assembly election.

More than likely that Prime Minister Narenda Modi too will announce something similar when he comes here on February 25. All indications that the BJP is taking the election seriously.

And it is the assurance from the top two leaders of the BJP that the State unit of the BJP will take off from and train their guns on the Congress to nullify all attempts to politicise the Framework Agreement.

The concern for Manipur and her integrity is understood and appreciated, but politicising the peace process between the NSCN (IM) and the Government of India just ahead of the Assembly election is unwarranted and not at all necessary.

It is this which the people should be wary of.

When the phrase without territorial limits was inserted in the Bangkok Declaration of June 14, 2001, it was not any political party which came to the forefront to protest the design of the outfit but the people.

This is a point which should not blow over the heads of any political party, particularly the Congress.

The BJP has made a point with the assurance coming from someone not less than the Union Home Minister himself and the best way to respond to the assurance is not to politicise the issue for electoral gains.