PMO rejects MHA choice of interlocutor for Naga talks

Overruling the Union home ministry yet again, the Prime Minister’s Office on Friday appointed Joint Intelligence Committee chairman R. N. Ravi as the new interlocutor for the Naga peace talks. Mr Ravi, it is learnt, was the prefered choice of national security adviser Ajit Doval.

Government sources said home minister Rajnath Singh had recommended the name of Ajit Lal, who had retired as JIC chairman in July 2014, as the interlocutor for the Naga talks. But after deliberating on the matter for some weeks, the PMO overruled that recommendation and named Mr Ravi as the interlocutor.

Sources said the Prime Minister’s Office preferred Mr Ravi because of his expertise in northeastern affairs.

He was looking after the region during his tenure in the Intelligence Bureau, from where retired as special director in 2012. In his new charge, Mr Ravi is expected to work towards drawing up a new format for the talks with insurgent groups to end the Naga imbroglio.

It is learnt both the NSA and the new Naga interlocutor are looking at timebound negotiations that can bring results.

This is in sharp contrast to the way this problem has been dealt with so long, with no end in sight after decades of peace negotiations.

Joint Intelligence Committee chairman R. N. Ravi’s choice as new interlocutor for the Naga peace talks is yet another instance of the PMO putting its stamp on critical appoinments instead of the home minister. It may be recalled that earlier the PMO had overruled the recommendation of the home ministry for appointment of Alok Singh, an IPS officer, as the private secretary to the home minister on the ground that he had served as a PS to the former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid during the UPA regime.

Mr Ravi, a 1976 batch IPS officer from Kerala cadre, was appointed as JIC chairman early this week. His appoint- ment has come about seven months after the last interlocutor R. S. Pandey resigned from the post.

As the new interlocutor, Mr Ravi will have to negotiate with Naga rebel group 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 rule “lacked decisive leadership”.

The government had entered into truce with the dominant Naga insurgent group NSCN( I- M) 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.