GUWAHATI, Dec 1 � The Ranjan Daimary faction of the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), which signed a ceasefire agreement with the Centre and the State Government on November 29, will finalize its agenda for talks shortly. Meanwhile, Daimary is trying to persuade the chief of the Songbijit faction of the NDFB to join the peace process.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, Daimary said that the national council of the outfit would meet soon to finalize the agenda for talks with the Government. He said the outfit is for solution of the political issues within a specific timeframe and hoped that the Government would play its part in this regard. He revealed that during the discussion on the eve of signing of the cease-fire agreement, the Joint Secretary (North East) of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Sambhu Singh had informed them that the Government was also keen on solving the issues within a specific timeframe.
Daimary said that he had informal talks with different Bodo groups and after the signing of the formal ceasefire agreement, he would start formal talks with different organizations. Replying to a question on whether the NDFB (P), which is also talking with the Government, would be joining hands with NDFB (R) for talks with the Government, he said that at this moment, both the outfits are talking separately. But at the same time, he hoped that both the factions would be able to join hands at some point of time.
The NDFB (R) chief admitted that he had recently got in touch with IK Songbijit, the chief of the NDFB (S) and tried to persuade him to join the peace process. Replying to a question as to why Songbijit, who was made commander-in-chief of the NDFB (R) by Daimary, broke away to form a new outfit, he said, �I was in jail when the division took place. Songbijit might have been frustrated with the delay on the part of the Government in responding to our unilateral ceasefire. As Songbijit is in Myanmar, the possibility of him coming under pressure from Paresh Baruah, commander-in-chief of the ULFA(I) and SS Khaplang, chief of the NSCN (K) also cannot be ruled out.�
Daimary said that shifting all the cadres to the designated camps might take some time and the Government officials and NDFB leaders would inspect the places chosen for the setting up of the designated camps soon. He said that the Government would provide a stipend to the cadres of the outfit. But there should not be any problem in identification of the cadres as the outfit has submitted the detailed list along with photographs of all the cadres he said.
There has been a controversy regarding the number of weapons submitted by the outfit, which has only submitted 40 weapons, while, there is a belief that it had much more weapons. But Daimary tried to play down the issue saying, �ours is mainly a political movement and 40 is a huge number of weapons for us. We are honest with the cease-fire.�
