‘There cannot be an overnight resolution to the decades’ old border dispute’: Himanta Biswa Sarma
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said there cannot be an overnight resolution of the decades-old border dispute between the states as it is a very complex issue. The CM said this on Monday while saying that peace and tranquility have been restored at the shared border with Mizoram.
“Mizoram has been demanding the inner line forest based on the notification issued by British in 1870. Assam’s position is that there is a constitutional boundary and Mizoram is asking about the historical boundary. Assam is protecting its constitutional boundary,” the BJP leader told PTI.
Sarma, who is on a four-day visit to the national capital starting from Saturday, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Monday.
The border disputes go back to the British era, Sarma in an interview to PTI said Assam has been holding talks with the officials of other Northeastern states too and blamed the previous Congress governments who ruled the country for decades but not clearly demarcating boundaries while carving out new states.
“The Congress never wanted a united North-East that’s why it left us to fight for our borders. But it could have been done better at the time of the creation of states. So over the period mistrust increased but now we are trying to resolve it,” the Assam Chief Minister said.
However, he added that as of now the issue between the two states has been resolved.
“We have discussed and settled the issue for the time being. I am in touch with the Mizoram chief minister and speak to him at least twice a day,” he said.
“We, the north-eastern states, are talking to each other and a long-term solution can be achieved by discussing the issue. Sometime over the table, we would be able to resolve it,” Sarma added.
The dispute between the two states of Northeast India, Assam and Mizoram broke out after six Assam police personnel were killed in a violent clash between the police forces of Assam and Mizoram last month over the border dispute between the two states following a fresh escalation of tension.
The two states share a 164.6-km border between Assam’s Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts, and Mizoram’s Kolasib, Mamit, and Aizawl districts.
The movement of trucks carrying supplies from Assam to Mizoram resumed last Saturday after two ministers from Assam hold talks with their counterparts. They, however, convinced the local protestors to let them pass, ending the unofficial economic blockade since July 26th last after the clash broke out between the two bordering states because such protest would let the state fall short of essentials.
The movement of trucks via NH-306 from Assam’s Cachar district resumed after 13 days, while vehicles started moving through NH-6 to Mizoram on Sunday night.
Minister Ashok Singhal, who was part of the first round of conciliatory talks in Aizawl, said trucks started moving following the Mizoram government’s assurance that they would institute an inquiry into the firing which claimed six lives and injuring several others.
