ITANAGAR, Feb 21: The Peoples’ Party of Arunachal (PPA) on Thursday said that if the report of the joint high power committee (JHPC) is in favour of issuing PRCs to the non-APSTs residing in some of the districts, it would be a “historical blunder.”
Clarifying the party’s stand on the PRC issue, the PPA said its Central Working Committee chairman, Kamen Ringu, who was a member of the JHPC on PRC, had told party colleagues that the JHPC report was not going to be in favour of issuing PRCs to the non-APSTs.
“The chairman of the party, who has visited the controversial areas as a member of the JHPC, on his return took the members of the party into confidence that the JHPC report could in no way be in favour of issuing PRCs to non-APSTs,” said the party.
“However, the actual report of the JHPC is reported to be just the opposite,” it said.
It said the party is “shocked to discover that the chairman of the PPA, who was selected to represent the party as a member of the JHPC by the government, without his name being endorsed by the executive body of the party, was kept in the dark about the actual report being prepared about the true findings of the JHPC members.”
It said the PPA has always stood by the spirit of the Bengal Eastern Regulating Frontier Act, 1873.
“Any attempt to issue PRCs to the non-APSTs should be considered a mockery of the living spirit of the BEFR, 1873,” the party said.
It said the issues of the citizenship amendment bill (CAB) and PRC “should be thoroughly taken to the length and breadth of the state by the intellectuals, civil societies, various students’ organizations, youths and panchayat bodies. People have to be taught and made to understand the perilous consequences of these two undemocratic issues.”
The party said the chief minister himself had been compelled, “considering the agitated minds of the people in the state against the evil consequences of the bill,” to give his opinion against the passage of the CAB before the bill was supposed to be placed in the Rajya Sabha.
The party also stated that the recent announcement by BJP president Amit Shah in Lakhimpur (Assam) that the party would bring back the CAB if voted back to power again “has again brought the entire people of the Northeast into a big dilemma.”
