By BARUN DAS GUPTA

GUWAHATI, JAN 2: The north-east continued to remain an unquiet region throughout 1999. Arunachal Pradesh saw the ouster of the government of Gegong Apang, the second longest-serving chief minister in India. In Meghalaya, the political kaleidoscope turned yet again to produce another government, the fourth since the 1998 Assembly elections. Manipur and Tripura continued to be bedeviled by militant violence. A tenuous and fragile cease-fire kept the people of Nagaland desperately craving for a lasting peace after decades of violence on the tenterhooks.

Only Assam presented a different picture: insurgency was on the wane and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta seemed firmly saddled in power, despite occasional rumblings of dissent against his leadership within the party and though the party lost the Lok Sabha polls yet again.

In Arunachal Pradesh, Mukut Mithi outwitted Apang, an astute player of the power game. When the Nyishi students union served a quit notice on the seven ministers of the community in early January, Apang failed to read the writing on the wall.

The Nyishi ministers resigned from the cabinet. Soon, 24 of Apang's 45 Arunachal Congress legislators deserted him. They were joined by eight of the eleven independents and four Congress MLAs. The leader of the flock was Mukut Mithi, whom Apang had sacked in May, 1997, when the latter was the home minister.

On January 19, Mithi became the chief minister and soon the breakaway MLAs of the aArunachal Congress rejoined the parent Congress. In Meghalaya, the NCP leader, Purno Sangma, succeeded in splitting the Congress which had won 25 seats in the 1998 Assembly elections. Nine Congress MLAs along with an associate member joined the NCP. They were followed by two independents, increasing the NCP's strength to 12. The chief minister B B Lyngdoh decided to desert the Congress and hug the NCP.

In Assam, though Mahanta does not face any immediate threat to his government the handful of dissidents to do not have much influence in the party he has little to show by way of development. The desperate financial condition of the state government further compounds this problem. The failure to win any seat in two successive Lok Sabha elections does not augur well for his party which will have to face Assembly elections in a year and a half.

Mahanta is aware of the need to make a breakthrough in the development front. That is why he is making a determined bid to woo the captains of industry to come to Assam, now that the government has offered them a whole package of incentives and the law and order situation is definitely better.

Militant violence continues to bleed Tripura. There has been no let-up in blood-letting. The two militant outfits, NLFT and ATTF, are killing not only personnel of the security forces and non-tribals but also tribals opposed to them.

Militant violence continues to disrupt normal life in Manipur where chief minister, Wahengbam Nipamacha Singh, rules the roost. The Opposition Congress, bedeviled by constant factionalism, suffered yet another setback when three dissident Congress MLAs walked into Nipamacha's Manipur State Congress Party (MSCP) in the third week of December, reducing its strength to 11.

In Nagaland, a ceasefire between the centre and the NSCN(I-M) has been in force since August, 1997. The other faction led by Khaplang (NSCN-K) wanted the ceasefire extended to it as well, but the centre refused s it is prepared to deal with the I-M group only, at least for the present.

The I-M group wanted the Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur, Arunachal and Assam also to be included within the purview of the ceasefire, but again, the centre declined. So it remains "effective", if that is the right word, in Nagaland only.

There is no unanimity between the centre and the I-M on the interpretation of "ceasefire" either. The centre insists ceasefire means the I-M group should refrain from all acts of violence, including attacks on the rival faction, extortion and kidnapping. But the I-M maintains that ceasefire only means it will not attack the security forces and nothing more.

After the abortive attempt on the life of the Nagaland chief minister, S C Jamir on November 29, the Nagaland cabinet directly accused the NSCN(I-M) of conspiring to "eliminate" Jamir, an allegation that the I-M group denied. (PIB)