Senapati, May 21 (MExN): The Mao Tata Sumo Union (MTSWU) and Senapati District Taxi Welfare Union (SDTWU) has called for “mutual understanding” to solve the continuing imbroglio between the Southern Angami Tata Sumo Union (SATSU) and taxi drivers of Mao and Senapati. “The MTSWU and SDTWU would like to state that Maos and Southern Angamis being blood brothers and would be neighbours for all times, it would be in the best interest of all the parties to come to a mutual understanding,” a press statement from the two unions stated. Making a stand in this regard, the two unions urged that those with taxi permits should be allowed to ply their taxis. The release informed that the two unions held an emergency meeting at Mao Town Hall to deliberate on the claims put forward by SATSU in their press release on the restriction of taxis coming from Manipur. The meeting unanimously resolved to clarify the matter to the public “by bringing out the factual truth”, the release stated. It clarified that the “so-called July 2010 Agreement” came about due to an “unfortunate incident” involving two individual taxi drivers from Nagaland and another from Manipur. “Therefore, in order to prevent such incident in the future, an agreement called the 2010 Agreement, was reached between the then Southern Drivers Union and Mao Drivers Union,” the two unions stated while revealing that the agreement makes no mention of “any condition whatsoever to suggest that Mao taxis will not ply from Kohima to Mao Gate”. While stating that Kohima to Mao Gate route is vital for Mao Taxis Drivers, the two unions insisted that they have not deprived the Southern Angamis off their livelihood by imposing restrictions on their taxis to ply from Mao Gate. Countering SATSU’s claims that Mao Taxi Drivers took advantage of the Koziirii-Dziikou conflict that occurred during the summer of 2015 and started plying from Kohima to Mao, the MTSWU and the SDTWU clarified, “It should be pointed out that, taking note of the passengers' woes the president of the then called ANTA (Mao Unit) wrote a letter to the president of SATSU requesting the resumption of plying their taxis from Mao Gate which was not acknowledged.” On the claims that "the Southern Angamis Taxis had stopped plying in the route for months", the MTSWU clarified that the service from Kohima to Mao Gate has been disrupted for years now i.e., since June 2015 till date. “However the SATSU did ply Kohima to Mao line in between on the basis of first come first similar to Mao-Dimapur line for a short period but later ceased to operate on their own,” the two unions stated. With regard to the meeting convened by SATSU on April 27, the Mao and Senapati units acknowledged that the presidents of Mao and Senapati Units failed to attend the meeting “on account of some unavoidable circumstances but did send their representatives to the said meeting”. “Having failed to reach an agreement due to the absence of the units Presidents, the Mao and Senapati Units requested another meeting on 17th May 2017 at Bviingho (between Mao gate and Khuzama gate). But SATSU failed to attend the meeting,” the unions disclosed and added, “The Mao and Senapati Units thereby volunteered to go to SATSU to resolve the matter but SATSU walked out of the meeting failing to reach any agreement.” Also countering SATSU's statement that "the complication arose because many of the Mao Private Vehicles are used as Taxis, which also led them to restrict all private vehicles carrying passengers," the two unions argued that SATSU allowed their private Vehicles to ferry passengers from Khuzama to Mao and Mao to Khuzama “without any restriction”. This, the two unions insisted, “shows that no restrictions have been imposed on anyone by MTSWU and SDTWU”.