Lacklustre Congress(I) regional conference

Lacklustre Congress(I) regional conference
(TELEGRAPH: 10 March, 1984)

The shadow of the New Delhi convention of Congress(I) MPs and MLAs over the last weekend hung heavy over the fourth meeting of the North-East Region Congress(I) Coordination Committee, held here on March 7. Most regional Congress(I) leaders did make it but seemed more worried about making it to the capital on time rather than in the deliberations.

Assam chief minister Hiteswar Saikia, Manipur chief minister Rishang Keishing and Nagaland chief minister S.C. Jamir, used IAF helicopters to fly in and out of Aizawl. The chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Mr Gegong Apang perhaps realising the problems of logistics, preferred to go straight to Delhi rather than attend the meeting here.

Chief guest Rajiv Gandhi, scheduled to stay two nights here on his maiden visit, made only a fleeting appearance. He flew in on the morning of March 7 in a hired aircraft, accompanied by the Union minister of state for home, Mr Ramdulari Sinha, covered the 23-km distance between the airport and the town in a heli¬copter, and flew back to Delhi the same afternoon to 'super¬vise the preparations for the capital show.

Even the number of dele¬gates was kept to a minimum: Meghalaya chief minister Capt. Williamson Sangma, who drove here from Shillong in convoy of cars, brought with him the greatest number of delegates, a dozen.

No election planning: Con¬trary to expectations, there were no formal discussions on strategy to be followed by the Congress(I) in next month's elections to the Mizoram Assembly.

The main thrust of the dis¬cussions was on the need to strengthen the party appar¬atus against regional parties. The resolution adopted said that such parties were "irrelevant" because of the emerging need for unity in diversity in the north-east. Mr Keishing even went to the ex-tent of saying that regional parties were "dangerous" be¬cause they directly or indirect¬ly helped secessionists. And yet, oddly enough, there was no call to Congressmen to launch any movement against secessionists.

A major surprise of the eco¬nomic resolution was its call to the Centre to have a fresh look at the criteria of allocation of funds for backward States and Union territories.

The coordination committee acts as the party's apex bureau in the region to further con¬tacts between the various ethnic and linguistic groups. Mr Hiteswar Saikia has been elected the new chairman of the committee, replacing Capt. Sangma, According to an Assam MLA, the significance of Mr Saikia's election is that it shows that the distrust be¬tween the Assamese lead¬ership and tribals is gradually giving way to mutual confi¬dence.
Santanu Ghosh.