SHILLONG: A hurried decision to bring ANVC cadres to main stream ahead of last Assembly elections coupled with red tape have delayed any immediate solution to the long pending peace pact with the ANVC and ANVC (B).
It was on January 5 last year the Government signed a draft peace pact with both ANVC and ANVC (B).
It is almost a year since the draft peace pact was signed, but the final agreement is still awaiting the nod of the Government.
One of the defects of the draft peace pact was that it was before entering into any suspension of operations that the Government entered into peace pact with ANVC (B) led by its chairman Rimpu Marak.
The ANVC (B) cadres recently said that the Government should have engaged in ceasefire with them. However, the parent body, ANVC has been under ceasefire since 2004.
Other than exchange of letters of clarifications and replies between the State Government and the Centre for nearly a year, not much progress was made on the peace pact.
ANVC publicity secretary Arist Sangma said that recently the ANVC leaders met concerned officials in Delhi and their reply was that the delay was on the part of the State Government.
The Centre had sought clarification on how forty seats will be allocated in the new empowered district councils as per the demand of the ANVC.
At present all the three district councils in the state comprise of 30 seats each and the ANVC wanted an increase of ten more seats which was included in the draft peace pact.
It was of November that the Centre had sought more clarification on the proposed 40 seats, but the letter of query is still pending in the files of political affairs department of the state.
The delay in arriving at the peace pact is leading to resentment among both the factions of ANVC.
There were also reports of cadres deserting both ANVC and ANVC-B pending the final clearance for the peace pact.
An official said that after the state Government gives its views on the clarification of the centre, the Union Cabinet will meet to finalize the peace pact.
It is yet to be known whether the agreement will be signed before the upcoming district council elections.
In the beginning of the year, State Government had turned down the demand of the parent group ANVC to constitute Garoland Autonomous Council (GAC) and rather Government proposed strengthening of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) with direct funding and providing more manpower.
Both ANVC and ANVC (B) had signed a draft agreement with the both Centre and State Government for expansion of powers of the Garo Hills Autonomous District (GHADC).The draft agreement was signed during the tripartite meeting between the representatives of the militant outfit and officials of the State Government and Union Ministry of Home Affairs in Shillong.
