Meant to be two-day tripartite talks - as the Ministry's invitation conveyed through Assam Government to various Bodo outfits said - the four-hour meeting at North Block served only to harden the non-compromising stand of the parties concerned.

The 40-odd representatives of some 50 lakh Bodos are shocked that the Assam Government did not send a single politician to New Delhi. The State delegation consisted merely of an Assistant Chief Secretary and three commissioners. The Ministry's team, on the other hand, was led by Additional Secretary P D Shenoy.

On top of it, the invitation to Bodo leaders did not speak of any agenda. Fumed Urkhao Gwra Brahma, president of All Bodo Students' Union (ABSU), the most powerful of the dozen odd outfits now in New Delhi, ``Thewhole affair turned out to be a joke. Like the invitation, the meeting too did not have any agenda. We are returning home utterly disappointed.'' Midway through the meeting, the Bodo leaders decided enough was enough. A hurriedly drafted resolution was placed before Shenoy saying that the only subject Bodo activists would discuss with the Government in the future would be ``creation of a separate state of Bodoland.''

The participants, later speaking to The Indian Express, lamented that had they known the futility of such talks, they would not have come here in the first place.

At the outset, disclosed Brahma, the Ministry and State officials tried to play down their demand of a separate state. This is what led to a stalemate, with each of the three parties refusing to budge from their stands. But this time, Bodo leaders had come prepared. The meeting at North Block will continue tommorrow, but Brahma and others do not see any point in it.