An Onge tribal in the Andamans

New Delhi, Dec. 11: The Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ decade-old statehood dream will not be realised just yet.

Although the Centre has not made a formal announcement yet, sources said the home ministry and the tribal ministry have opposed the demand, citing the strategic importance of the islands.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said to be sympathetic to the cause of the Andamans, had set up a group of ministers headed by Pranab Mukherjee to consider the statehood demand.

“The home ministry stressed the importance of having the archipelago directly under its control and warned about possible dangers if it became an independent entity. The tribal ministry was worried about the indigenous tribes there. With all this opposition, there is now little chance for the Andamans,” a member of the group of ministers said.

Manoranjan Bhakta, the lone MP from the Andamans, who had even gone on a hunger strike at Port Blair to press for statehood, is furious.

The group of ministers had solved almost all issues and was on the verge of declaring statehood but the home ministry vetoed it, he said. “If one goes by the home ministry’s argument, then which part of India is not strategically important? Aren’t Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and the Northeast states strategically important?”

The tribal ministry argued that the Andamans were home to primitive tribal groups like the Great Andamanese, the Onges, the Shompens and the Jarawas, and the responsibility of preserving the aboriginal human habitat on the islands, as well as the rare flora and fauna, should be the Centre’s.

Bhakta said setting up a legislative Assembly would have spurred development on the islands. “It seems the government takes note of you only if you react violently,” said the Congress MP, who is representing the islands for the eighth successive term.

Statehood, a long-standing demand of the Andamans, gained intensity after Puducherry was granted its own Assembly and chief minister. The tsunami that wrought havoc on the islands in 2004 fuelled it further.

The Prime Minister, who had visited the islands after the tsunami, had promised to look into the demand “favourably”.

The group of ministers he set up includes home minister Shivraj Patil, finance minister P. Chidambaram, tribal affairs minister P. R. Kyndiah, tourism minister Ambika Soni and minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chavan.