Bonnie Konyak
Dimapur | July 15
Despite the best efforts of the North East Students’ Organisation (NESO), the relationship between the NSF and the AASU seems strained after the recent economic blockade. This was further aggravated by a communication gap resulting in the President of NSF, Imchatoba leaving Guwahati without signing the draft of the Joint Declaration and the Memorandum to the Chief Minister of Assam. Consequently, the joint meeting with the Chief Minster of Assam, which was to be held today with a delegation of the NSF, AASU and NESO, had to be called off and rescheduled for a future date.
The whole episode began when NESO leaders set out on the task to draft a joint communiqué of the yesterday’s joint meeting and the Memorandum for the Chief Minister of both the states of Assam and Nagaland. The NSF president, Imchatoba, being required to leave Guwahati that very night as he had to leave for Delhi on other pressing matters, was unable to attend the joint meeting of the Student bodies with the Assam Chief Minister scheduled the next day. However it was agreed that a delegate of the NSF would accompany the AASU and the NESO for the said meeting, but the signature of the president was required for the Memorandum to be submitted.
With the meeting having ended late last night and with little time to prepare a final draft, NESO suggested that the NSF president just leave his signature on a blank paper which would be scanned and used after the draft was prepared. However, Imchatoba refused to do so saying that he would have to see and agree with the content of the final draft before signing it and asked the NESO leaders to finalize the draft as soon as possible.
After waiting for several hours when he received no word from the memorandum drafter, Imchatoba headed back home for Dimapur at 12:30 midnight.
Meanwhile, it was learnt that the NESO leaders had been waiting for the NSF president to inform them when he was leaving. When contacted the NSF president said that there had been a little miscommunication, however he informed that the other NSF delegates were arriving with the drafts today and he would do the necessary after going through it. Advisor of NESO, Artax Shimray said that the joint delegates would now first meet with the Chief Minister of Nagaland sometime this week along with the NSF president.
Though the matter has now been amicably settled, there was evidence of tension even during the joint meeting of the AASU, NSF and NESO with little time to thrash out all the issues involved in the economic blockade. The meeting nearly came to a deadlock a few times with the NSF reluctant to commit themselves for the joint visit to the Border Areas without first conferring with the students of the border areas especially the KSU, AKM and the PPC. The NESO and AASU were however insisted that the border visit be carried out at the earliest when the matter was still fresh. The matter was finally settled with the NSF agreeing in principle to visit, but the date remained undecided.
However till the filing of the report, the matter remains unsettled and the Joint meeting is still unfinished without the formal signature of the NSF president.
Morung Express News
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