Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 30 Aug: Newly floated political party Arunachal Frontier Tribal Front’s (AFTF) chairman Tadak Nalo said that his party submitted a representation to union Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday in New Delhi, urging him to address the issue of including Arunachal Pradesh under the ambit of Article 371A (Nagaland) and Article 371G (Mizoram) “by amending the article imposed here in Arunachal Pradesh,” terming the requirement “a long pending need of the indigenous communities of the state for their protection.”
He also demanded inclusion of Arunachal under the ambit of the 6th Schedule, as is the case with Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
Nalo questioned why the state Assembly is not pressing the issue of inclusion of Arunachal under the 6th Schedule, even though the Assembly had on 27 August, 2020 unanimously passed the resolution to apprise the Centre of the matter.
“The time has come for the geo-politically most sensitive and socio-culturally and economically fragile frontier state of the country to be safeguarded with constitutional protection,” Nalo said.
He stressed also on amending the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, and asked that the inner line permit (ILP) regime be “empowered with a constitutional status.”
He said that the party has requested Rijiju to take up the issue in the next Parliament session, “so that ILP cannot be lifted up the way Article 370 was abrogated overnight in Jammu & Kashmir in 2019.”
Nalo, who was earlier the vice chairman of the Pan-Arunachal Joint Steering Committee on Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission fiasco had announced on 19 July that he would float a regional party to demand “tribal rights in the state on various grounds.”
“We are appealing for a serious introspection on the long prevailing alarming circumstances of the state. We demand immediate measures against issues that need to be taken care of,” he said.
Arunachal, being a tribal state, Nalo said, “requires a relook and reexamination of the prevailing circumstances,” he said.
The party’s other demands include, inter alia, permanent solution to the refugee crisis in Arunachal; a long-term solution to the interstate boundary issue; initiation of delimitation process in the state; and establishment of a separate cadre of All India Services for Arunachal.
