Even though Rajnath Singh will be at the helm of affairs in the capital in the absence of Narendra Modi, another incident has come to light of the two leaders not being on the same page. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) yet again overruled a suggestion of the Home Ministry and appointed RN Ravi, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), as the new interlocutor for the Naga peace talks. "The government has appointed RN Ravi, Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee as the new official interlocutor and government of India representative for Naga peace talks," an official notification said today.
Official sources said Home Minister Rajnath Singh had recommended the name of Ajit Lal, who had retired as Chairman of JIC in July 2014, as the interlocutor for the Naga talks. However, after deliberating over the suggestion for several weeks, the PMO overruled the recommendation. The reason behind the appointment of Ravi for the post was his expertise in Northeast affairs as he was looking after the region during his tenure in the Intelligence Bureau from where he retired as Special Director in 2012.
Earlier, the PMO had overruled the recommendation of the Home Ministry for the appointment of Alok Singh, an IPS officer, as the private secretary to the Home Minister on the ground that he had served as a Personal Secretary to the former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid during the UPA regime.
Ravi, a 1976 batch IPS officer from Kerala cadre, was appointed as JIC Chairman early this week. His appointment has come seven months after the last interlocutor R S Pandey resigned from the post. The post was being looked after by Lal.
As the new interlocutor, Ravi will have to negotiate with Naga rebel group National Socialist Council of Nagaland - Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM), who had blamed the previous Manmohan Singh government of failure to evolve a solution to the vexed insurgency problem in Nagaland, saying the UPA regime "lacked decisive leadership". The government had entered into truce with the dominant Naga insurgent group NSCN(IM) in 1997 and since then more than 80 rounds of talks have been held between the Centre and NSCN led by chairman Isak Chishi Swu and general secretary T Muivah without a concrete outcome in the last 17 years of truce.
In the past, former Governor Swaraj Kaushal, former Union Minister Oscar Fernandes and former Union Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah had acted as interlocutors and had held talks with the Naga rebels. However, not much headway could be made in the talks and increased clashes between NSCN-IM and NSCN-Khaplang group were witnessed.
Just like the situation in the Naga valley is unlikely to improve any time soon, looks like we haven't seen the last of the rumour mills about the Rajnath-Modi equation.
With agency inputs
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