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Onkar Singh in New Delhi
Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani said the government has not yet taken a decision to appoint former Lok Sabha speaker Purno Agitok Sangma as its representative for talks with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah).
Earlier, there were reports that the government had appointed Sangma, general secretary of the Nationalist Congress Party, as its chief interlocutor and that he would be assisted by former Union home secretary K Padmanabhaiah, who has been negotiating with the NSCN-IM so far.
Minister of State for Home I D Swami said the government had been considering the proposal to appoint Sangma, on the lines of the appointment of Planning Commission Deputy Chairman K C Pant for Jammu & Kashmir, as demanded by Sangma himself, for the last two and a half months.
Sangma had, in a letter to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said that the government would do well to appoint a senior and seasoned politician -- like it had appointed Pant for Kashmir -- to handle the negotiations with the NSCN-IM instead of leaving it to bureaucrats.
Sangma had also suggested an eight-point programme to establish peace in the Northeast.
Moreover, he had suggested that the government should not limit its negotiations to the NSCN-IM, but should include all the other militant groups in the Northeast.
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