Guwahati, Nov 24 : The Paresh Barua-led group of Ulfa today named a 16-member central committee, as it had announced earlier, but left all positions occupied by pro-talks leaders free except that of the deputy commander-in-chief.
Barua made himself the acting vice-chairman and remained the military chief, while promoting himself to the rank of “major general” from “colonel”.
Reacting swiftly to the move, the pro-talks group of the outfit led by Arabinda Rajkhowa described the move as unconstitutional, as it went against the outfit’s basic tenets.
The new committee also has an acting chairman — Abhijit Barman, a name unknown to the Rajkhowa group, with some saying it was probably just a name.
An email statement issued by the Barua-led group’s spokesperson, Arunodoi Dohotia, said its mobile military headquarters had unanimously approved the names of the 16-member central committee and appealed to people of the state for their “continued cooperation, blessings and inspiration”.
The new names of the committee include acting chairman Abhijit Barman, acting vice-chairman and military chief “major general” Paresh Barua, assistant general secretary and acting finance secretary “lieutenant colonel” Jiban Moran, deputy military chief “major” Drishti Rajkhowa and “major” Bijoy Chinese, assistant finance secretary “major” Michal Dekaphukan and “captain” Partho Gogoi, assistant organising secretaries “captain” Montu Saikia, “captain” Nayan Medhi, “lieutenant” Selim and “lieutenant” Azhar Ali, assistant cultural secretaries “lieutenant” Samiran Bhuyan, “lieutenant” Sagar Topno and “lieutenant” Jyotimoy Bharali, assistant information and publicity secretary “lieutenant” Arunodoi Dohotia and assistant foreign secretary Pranomoy Asom.
The group, which had earlier said doors were open for chairman Rajkhowa and other senior leaders and that it would welcome them if they decided to return, did not no-minate a permanent committee, barring the post of deputy military chief in which Dris-hti Rajkhowa and Partho Go-goi have been nominated in pl-ace of Raju Baruah, who, too, is with the pro-talks group.
The Paresh Barua group is against talks with the government without discussions on the subject of sovereignty.
The spokesperson of Rajkhowa group, Mrinal Hazarika, told The Telegraph that the new committee announced by Barua was not acceptable according to the constitution of Ulfa. “He (Barua) cannot nominate a new committee without approval by Ulfa’s general council and nor can he effect any changes in the ranks of the organisation. He created a rank of ‘major general’ and promoted himself, though there is no such rank in Ulfa,” Hazarika said.
On being asked why a permanent committee had not been named, Hazarika said, “Maybe Barua is waiting for Anup Chetia’s return, since he himself cannot nominate a permanent committee. Chetia’s stand will determine the balance of power in the outfit. But we can only say that Chetia is in favour of talks.”
According to a senior leader of the Rajkhowa group, Barua was forced to constitute a committee because without that, he would have found it difficult to liase with any other group or agency. “They will want to know about the organisational structure before getting into any deal, so he had to form a committee,” he said.
Stating that Abhijit Barman and Pranomoy Asom were, in all probability, fake names, he said, “We would otherwise have known them because these are senior posts and given to senior leaders.”
Hazarika, however, said the announcement of new central committee would have no impact on the ongoing peace process with New Delhi.
“In case of NSCN, NDFB and some other groups, we have seen that there are factions outside the purview of talks process. So we do not believe that the new development will have any impact on the talks process,” he said.
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