Imphal/Aizawl, Aug 5 Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh on Monday rejected reports of his Mizoram counterpart Lalduhoma being appointed as an “interlocutor for peace talks” given the ethnic violence the state.
The Chief Minister told the Manipur assembly that the reports in a section of the media and social media were not true and that the Mizoram Chief Minister would mediate in the Manipur ethnic crisis and the peace talks.
Singh said that on the sideline of the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi on July 27, he met with Assam Chief Minister (Himanta Biswa Sarma), Nagaland Chief Minister (Neiphiu Rio) and Mizoram Chief Minister and held casual interactions on a few issues on the northeastern states.
“During the casual interaction with the Mizoram Chief Minister, I had requested him to visit Manipur. These casual conversations were interpreted otherwise and blown out of proportion with many saying Lalduhoma has been appointed as interlocutor,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that the Prime Minister’s Office or the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has the authority to appoint an interlocutor for a certain purpose.
So far no such steps have been taken or discussed, he told the house.
An official of Mizoram Chief Minister’s Office earlier said that Lalduhoma held a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in his residence in New Delhi on August 1 and urged him to hold talks with the tribal leaders of Manipur, as part of the efforts to resolve the ethnic crisis prevailing in the neighbouring state.
Due to the ethnic, cultural and traditional similarities between Manipur’s Kuki-Zo-Hmar tribes with the Mizos of Mizoram, the tribal leaders of Manipur held meetings on several occasions in Aizawl with the incumbent Chief Minister Lalduhoma and former Chief Minister Zoramthanga, when he was in office, and discussed the ethnic violence and the tribals’ sufferings in the neighbouring country.
--IANS
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