Veroli Zhimo
On a rain soaked Monday evening, newsrooms in Nagaland gathered reports of the opposition Naga People’s Front (NPF) party joining the ruling NDPP-led People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA) under the guise of bringing a solution to the protracted Naga political issue.
The following day, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) convened an “emergency meeting” and issued a statement declaring a few resolutions. Notably, the party welcomed the NPF’s decision with the caveat that it would have to consult its alliance partner—the BJP.
Meanwhile, the BJP remains tight-lipped about the development. NDPP sources maintained that it was still to meet the State BJP leadership to discuss the NPF proposal. An NDPP party leader averred that the BJP, as a “high command party” would first have to consult its Central leadership in Delhi before making a move, this newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Now, should the BJP “high command” also welcome the NPF into the fold, there will be no opposition in the Nagaland assembly for the second time in this decade. The first time this happened was in 2015 when eight Congress MLAs joined the NPF-led DAN-III government and rendered the house without any opposition.
This recent move by the NPF has drawn the ire of many in the politics obsessed state and prompted the Congress party to dub it as a pretext to “enjoy the perks of office while delaying the implementation of Naga political solution.” On social media platforms, citizens seem to be engrossed in debates on whether the Nagaland’s legislators will pull another ‘Kaziranga’ and flock to the National Park like they did in 2017. Some others are still shocked at the speed with which the NPF, which had vehemently demanded probes into PDA government’s expenditure up until the first week of July, has taken a u-turn.
So far, both the PDA, or at least the NDPP, and the NPF have emphatically justified the move by invoking their commitment to facilitate a final settlement to the Naga political issue—a logic defying stance considering that all legislators, party affiliations aside, are members of the Parliamentary Committee on Naga Political Issue. Another point of interest is that neither the state government nor the legislators are in anyway involved in the Indo-Naga Peace Talks, adding to the argument that the move for an ‘all party government’ is somewhat illogical.
While it is only a matter of time before the intentions behind this political realignment is revealed, the question of how it will affect the overall health of the state’s democracy remains. And as the state waits in animated suspense, one can only hope that the opposition’s decision to abdicate its crucial responsibility as a parliamentary watchdog will not prove detrimental to the future of the Nagas.
Feedback and comments can be sent to vzhimolimi@gmail.com
