3 months ago
18
Reiterating their demand for a Union Territory for tribals in Manipur, 10 MLAs from the Kuki-Zo community held a sit-in protest in New Delhi on Tuesday and submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention to stop the violence in the state, which began in May 2023.
The 10 tribal MLAs, including seven from the BJP, held the sit-in-protest at Jantar Mantar and then said that a separate administration, in the form of a Union Territory with its own legislature, is the only solution to the ethnic strife in Manipur.
Criticising the delay in holding a dialogue with groups like the United Peoples' Front and Kuki National Organisation, the ten MLAs said, "We condemn attempts to create divisions within our people by the proposals to discontinue the Suspension of Operations with select armed groups."
Their memorandum to the Prime Minister said, "Apart from the prolonged and chronic discrimination towards the hill districts in matters of development by the successive Meitei majoritarian state governments, it is sad to see the discrimination being worsened in this time of the conflict for the last 19 months.
"The Manipur government had failed to recommend and deliberately left out the affected hill districts for funding of central financial assistance under 'PM-DevINE' for the project providing Super Speciality and Assured Speciality Health Care in remote and hill districts (infrastructure and equipment) in Manipur," it said.
The 10 tribal MLAs also urged the central government to fund development projects in the districts predominantly inhabited by the tribals.
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