After election debacle, NPCC President K Therie ‘resigns’ on moral ground
Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 10
Following the recent debacle at the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) elections where the Congress did not win a single seat, a dejected Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) president K Therie tendered his resignation on Saturday citing moral grounds.
While the NPCC media cell denied that report of the resignation when contacted and maintained that “these were mere rumours of certain people who wanted Therie to resign” and he has not put in his papers, Therie himself confirmed to The Morung Express of the news of his resignation.
“I have resigned on moral grounds. As the NPCC president, I have resigned owning responsibility for the election debacle,” Therie said. He said he has submitted his resignation letter to the Executive Committee of the NPCC on Saturday.
The veteran Congressman maintained that besides the Congress election pledges, he stood for a secular alternative which could not be materialized since the presence of the party in the state legislature has been “wiped out.”
While the reaction/decision from the party workers as well as the executive committee of the NPCC on the resignation could not be obtained, Therie said he has made his position clear, indicating that he may not budge from this decision. As far as his status in the NPCC is concerned, he said that he will remain as a member of the party.
It may be recalled that K Therie assumed charge as the NPCC president in May 2015 following the resignation of SI Jamir on grounds of ‘failing health.’
The resignation may not bode well for the already frail and rudderless Congress party in the state. Besides the infightings among the party, which had taken its toll in recent years, the Congress may find itself an empty seat on the driver’s chair with no able or experienced leader at hand to replace him.
The Congress fielded 23 candidates for the February 27 election to the 13th NLA. However, fund crunch forced the Congress to withdraw five candidates, leaving 18 in the fray. None of the 18 candidates including the NPCC president K Therie, who contested from 16 Pfutsero A/C, won or obtained sizable votes.
Clearly, the Congress was never in the game. It struggled to find candidates for the assembly elections and its hopes of a pre-poll alliance with the ruling Naga Peoples Front (NPF) were also dashed with the ruling party announcing its contestants for all 60 seats.
In the 2013 Assembly polls, the Congress had contested from 56 seats and won eight. The party had secured 24. 89 per cent of the total votes polled. The party then lost all the eight MLAs when they merged with the NPF on November, 2015, leaving the Congress party a blank in the state legislature. In 2018, its votes share decreased drastically to 2.1%.
Now out of power for 15 years, it appears that Congress, which has given three chief ministers to Nagaland since its inception in 1963, may be finally heading for the grave, even though its downfall started years ago.
Dr S C Jamir, currently the Governor of Odisha, had served as the Congress chief minister of Nagaland from 1989 to 1990 and then again from 1993 to 2003. K L Chishi of the grand old party was on the chair for 36 days in 1990.
According to political observers, with acute leadership deficit, the Congress will find it increasingly difficult to survive this time round. One of the last Congress veterans, SI Jamir, the NPCC president before Therie had resigned on health grounds and later joined NPF.
Another veteran Congress leader and former Chief Minister KL Chishi resigned from “all level of the Indian National Congress” just two days after the announcement of the election to the 13th NLA, dealing a huge blow to the party.
He was also part of an eight-member coordination committee formed by the Congress President Rahul Gandhi for the Nagaland Assembly election. In his resignation letter, Chishi had cited “trust deficit in spite of repeated submission and advice to the appropriate authority of INC for the last one year…” As a result, he said, “I cannot continue to remain in the INC anymore.”
Consequent to the debacle of the recent election and the resignation of the NPCC president, political commentators observed that it would be difficult for the Congress to rise from the ashes in the state or the North East. Following “The Congress will have to begin from scratch and will still not be certain whether it will survive,” a political commentator noted.
Just recently a stronghold of the Congress, the grand old party has already been decimated in almost all states in the North East, with its nemesis at the centre, the BJP making inroads.
