Withdrawal of Soo unlikely: Political parties
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, May 31 2023: Despite the growing pitch for termination of Sus-pension of Operation (So0) agreement with Kuki mili-tants from different sections of the society, there is no sign of the Centre endorsing the demand, according to nine political parties.

Addressing a joint press conference held at the resi-dence of ID-U state president Kshetrimayum Biren here on Wednesday, JD-U Manipur chief spokesperson Dr Ni-maichand Luwang said that the BJP government should be held responsible for the violence in the state as it failed to control the situation from going out of hands in the initial stage.

Though several sections of the society are demanding withdrawal of the SoO agreement the Centre is in no mood to accept the de-mand as the cadres of outfits bound by the agreement are paid honorarium by the cen-tre, he explained and added that the Central government should be held responsible for the armed assaults on civil-ians and burning of villages being carried out by the Kuki militants under SoO.

He said that a joint meeting of eight political parties held on May 27 prepared a mem-orandum for submission to Amit Shah.

One more po-litical party has also joined the team on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, representatives of the political parties met the union home minister.

How-ever, the government selec-tively invited representatives of political parties.

There was one representative each for BP and its alliance partners.

For the nine political par-ties, only CPI's Dr M Nara, CPI-M's Ksh Shanta and ID-U's Md Nasir were invited.

JD-U submitted name of its president Ksh Biren for the meeting but the government invited Md Nasir instead, Dr Nimaichand said.

As the state government had earlier accepted secu-rity lapses it seems that the government deliberate-ly sidelined leaders, who would raise voice against BJP though they had no choice but to invite the two lead-ers of CPI and CPI-M from among the opposition, he added.

Joining the media briefing, JD-U vice-president Dr Kh Loken said that the party could not get opportuni-ty to raise its concerns and share suggestions.

He said that people of the state did not wait for announcement of compensation and rice from Amit Shah but wanted a solution, which remained elusive during his visit, he said.

According to CPI-M leader Ksh Shanta the state's secu-rity forces did not act to stop the violence when it started on May 3 in Churachand-pur district.

The state-wide violence could have been averted had the state forc-es acted timely.

Highlight-ing the failure on the part of the government and its administration, they raised the demand the Centre to take control of the law and order situation of the state, he added.

They also drew attention of the union home minister on the sustained violence in the peripheral villages even in the presence of union ministers and senior official of ministry of home affairs while stressing the need for strict measures to control the violence at the earliest.

Representatives of JD-U, CPI, CPI-M, AITC, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thakeray), RSP, and NCP attended the press meet.

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