Fresh tripartite talks on creation of 7 Manipur districts on Thursday

Manipur CM N Biren Singh

A fresh round of tripartite meetings on the creation of seven districts in Manipur will be held in Senapati district on Thursday, an official said in Imphal.

Those districts were created in 2016 by the then Congress government led by Okram Ibobi Singh amid opposition from the United Naga Council (UNC), the apex body of Naga tribes in Manipur.

“The next round of talks among the central government, the state government and the United Naga Council will be held tomorrow in Senapati,” the official said on Wednesday.

The UNC has been opposing the creation of the new districts, asserting that those districts encroached upon the ancestral land of the Nagas. The Congress government had then said that the move was aimed at administrative convenience.

The last round of tripartite talks, held in November last year, did not yield any result.

"Representatives of the government of Manipur expressed inability to present a concrete proposal in view of certain difficulties. However, UNC expressed strong exceptions over non-submission of a concrete proposal and insisted that it be submitted in the next rounds of talks," a joint statement issued after that meeting said.

Those seven new districts were formed by dividing the total nine existed at that time.