Guwahati, February 06: The second round of talks with the Centre and the ULFA constituted Peoples' Consultative Group (PCG) was scheduled to be held tomorrow in New Delhi amidst the hope of paving the way for direct talks between the Government and the banned outfit.

The run-up to the second round of talks was marked by several hitches like the violence unleashed by the outfit prior to the Republic Day and the latest being the ULFA-AASU spat on the issue of sovereignty.

With the Centre delaying the announcement for the date of second round of talks, the ULFA recently triggered several bomb blasts in oil pipelines, power plants and in Guwahati killing four people, injuring several others and damaging properties worth lakh of rupees.

Following the violence, Centre announced the date for the talks but this was marked by controversy as only five of the nine members were invited for the talks.

The ULFA reacted in its mouthpiece 'Freedom' by asserting that it was not in favour of any secret talks with the Centre but would like to hold it on a world platform like the UN.

The outfit had expressed doubts on the sincerity of the Central Government as it had invited only a few members of the PCG for the forthcoming talks.

The PCG also stated the group was not in favour of talks with only a few of its members as proposed by the Centre but all nine members will participate in tomorrow's talks.

The ULFA too supported the decision that all nine members along with the two facilitators Dr Mamoni Raisom Goswami and ace yesteryear footballer Rebati Phukan should attend tomorrow's meeting and accordingly all the members left for New Delhi today.

The latest controversy to hit the peace process is the spat between the ULFA and AASU which began last week with the banned outfit accusing the student body of taking money from Indian intelligence agencies to oppose ULFA's sovereignty demand.

The AASU asked the ULFA to desist from making such 'frivolous' statements "to hide its own short-comings".

Another controversy that rocked the State on the peace talks was Assam Governor Ajai Singh's statement that talks with the ULFA should be held only after the surrender of the militants.

Both the ULFA and the PCG alleged the Governor and security forces operating in the State were against the peace process and were engaged in a conspiracy to derail it.

The PCG was likely to raise the issue of suspension of operations against the ULFA, release of jailed central committee members to enable them to participate in the talks process and the whereabouts of the ULFA cadres missing since the Bhutan operation.

The first round of talks was held with the Prime Minister's Office on October 25 with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself present at the meeting.

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