Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said the Government is talking to both the Meitei and Kuki communities in Manipur to ensure lasting peace and has begun fencing the country’s border with Myanmar to check infiltration. He also said the BJP-led NDA Government will implement the ‘one nation, one election’ within its current tenure.

Addressing a press conference here on the achievements of the 100 days of the Modi 3.0 Government, Shah said barring three days of violence last week, the overall situation in Manipur has been calm and the Government has been working to restore peace in the restive Northeastern State. Shah, flanked by Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, said apart from the three days of violence, no major incidents were reported in the last three months.

Asked about the possible visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Manipur, Shah said, when he visits the State, it will be known to everyone. “There was peace in the last three days and I am hopeful that we will be able to control the situation. We are talking to both communities. It was ethnic violence and unless there is dialogue between the two communities, no solution could be found. We are talking to the Kuki and Meitei groups. We have prepared a roadmap and will take all possible steps (to ensure peace),” he said.

Shah said the Government has successfully completed the deployment of Central Reserve Police Force personnel at strategic locations across Manipur. Home Minister said in the first 100 days of the Modi 3.0 Government, work on fencing the India-Myanmar border, which is the root cause of the problem, has begun. “Fencing work in 30 km has been completed. Besides the Government of India has approved the budget for fencing along the over 1,500 km border,” he said.

The Home Minister said the Government has already scrapped the India-Myanmar Free Movement Regime (FMR), which allows people residing close to the border between the two countries to venture 16 km into each other’s territory without any documents.

“To check the infiltration, we have ended the special arrangement (FMR) with Myanmar under which free movement of the people of both countries was allowed. Now people can cross into each other’s territory only with a visa. We brought a law in this regard,” he said.

Shah said the Government has also ended the security lapses which existed earlier along the international border. The 1,643 km long India-Myanmar border, which passes through Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, had the FMR that was implemented in 2018 as part of India’s Act East policy.

Ethnic violence has been going on in Manipur since May 3 last year after a tribal solidarity march in the hill districts of the State to protest against the majority Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe status. Since then, over 220 people belonging to both the Kuki and Meitei communities and security personnel have been killed in the continuing violence.

Amit Shah claimed that the Modi Government will implement One Nation, One Poll in the current tenure.”We plan to implement one nation one poll within the tenure of this Government,” he said. One nation, one election’ is one of the key promises made by the BJP in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections. A high-level panel headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind in March this year recommended simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.

Home Minister Amit Shah said the Government will “very soon” make an announcement for carrying out the census in the country. “We will announce it very soon,” Shah said in response to a question on conducting the decadal census of the Indian population which has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We will make all the details public when we announce the census,” the Union Home Minister said to questions on the caste census.  India has conducted the census every 10 years since 1881. The first phase of this decade’s census was expected to begin on April 1, 2020 but had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.