All party Manipur delegation in New Delhi

IMPHAL, Dec 3 – An all political parties team led by Deputy Chief Minister and President of Manipur Predesh Congress Committee (MPCC) Gaikhangam is in the national capital to meet the Central leaders including Prime Minister, Union Home Minister and External Affairs Minister in connection with the issue arising out of the border fencing at Moreh town.

Except the BJP, Manipur Pradesh and Manipur Peoples Party, representatives of 12 political parties had left Imphal for New Delhi on Sunday. Manipur Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh is also camping there to take appointment of the Prime Minister, reports said.

The decision to take an all political party delegation to New Delhi was taken at a meeting chaired by Ibobi Singh at his Secretariat conference hall last month.

Speaking to the media before their depature, Deputy CM Gaikhangam, who also holds the Home portfolio, said the team will be meeting the Central leaders before the Parliament session which begins from December 5. “We will put pressure on the Central Government so that the the border fencing issue could be settled on time,” Gaikhangam added.

Manipur is currently facing a border issue along the Indo-Myanmar international boundary. The government’s move to fence the unfenced Manipur sector of the Indo-Myanmar border by leaving out several Manipur villages outside the fence has evoked widespread protest in the State.

The border fencing along the Manipur border is feared to affect around 20,000 people in 43 border villages if the authority failed to re-survey the border pillars, according to the Committee on Protection of Land in Border Fencing (CPLBF). The all political party delegation had recently visited Moreh town, 110 km south of Imphal and inspected the ongoing border fencing works.

After calling a Statewide general strike as part of their protest against the government’s inaction in the ongoing border issue, the CPLBF has threatened to launch different forms of agitation if the concerned authority failed to resolve the issue within December 10. CPLBF is demanding a joint survey and re-demarcation of the real boundary between India and Myanmar.