GUWAHATI: Assam and Meghalaya have decided to resolve their vexed boundary disputes with a with a promise to safeguard the northeast spirit of friendship. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad K Sangma visited the disputed Langpih on Tuesday and held deliberations with border residents. It is one of the worst affected areas of the disputes.
Earlier, the two states had constituted three regional committees each which conducted joint visits to the disputed areas to try and understand the problem. Sarma said the panels have already taken the views of people and considered factors, including administrative contiguity.
“The committees will submit their reports to the respective CMs soon. Once we receive the reports, we will sit down again and try to resolve the disputes in six areas of differences taken up in the first phase,” the Assam CM said.
The dispute in these six areas is considered less complex. There are in total 12 areas of differences. “We have not included Langpih in the first phase as we believed we need to have an extensive dialogue with citizens of both states prior to making an attempt here,” Himanta said.
“We have to work on ground zero and look at historical facts, constitutional issues and the entire dispute so that once we resolve it, there are no issues left to be resolved by our future generations. We are going to
resolve the dispute with the northeast spirit of friendship,” the chief minister said. Conrad Sangma echoed his Assam counterpart by stating that both states were committed to resolve the issue “as a promise to the people”.