NEW DELHI: Non -participation of any of the parties from the North East sharing vast tracts of disputed boundary with China in Friday’s all-party meeting of the Prime Minister over the ongoing violent border clashes has raised eyebrows.
Almost all the regional parties are in alliance with the BJP-led NDA but none of them was invited to the crucial meeting. China lays claim to almost the whole of Arunachal Pradesh as part of “South Tibet” ever since the 1962 war. The state has a 1126-km-long border with the next-door neighbour followed by Sikkim (220 kms) which is more than what is disputed in the Union Territory of Ladakh.
Yet, no regional party got an invitation to Friday’s meeting simply on the mathematical calculation that none of them have five MPs in the Lok Sabha which was the criteria. But the BJP has been criticised by many for not inviting any of the parties in North East, which bears the maximum number of Chinese incursions and was the main theatre of war in 1962. Pradyot Manikya Debburman, the former Congress leader and head of the Tripura royal family, has taken to twitter to complain about North East regional parties not being invited for the all-party meeting.
Arguing that China, which shares a long border with Northeastern states like Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, has a huge interest in the region, he tweeted: “China has a huge interest in the North East and sadly no regional party has been invited in the all-party meet”.
The reason for the exclusion of the North East parties from the meeting could be the criteria set by the Centre, as per which invitation has only been sent to political parties with five or more MPs in the parliament.
None of the regional parties in the North East can have five MPs in Lok Sabha barring Assam as the rest have either two or one MPs each. The regional parties in the region are mostly state-based which can have one or maximum two MPs in the best-case scenario.
The border guarding force at the Indo-China border is the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. The total number of BOPs are 173 out of which 35 falls under the Western Sector (J&K), 71 under the Middle Sector (Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), and 67 under the Eastern Sector (Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh).
The strategic aim of China is to cut off the Siliguri chicken neck corridor, the main surface link of the entire North East to mainland India. The region is also surrounded by more foreign countries with longest frontiers than any other region of the country which makes it most vulnerable to an external power.
