Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and others with 10 NPF candidates for Manipur polls on February 16. (Morung Photo)
NPF kicks off Manipur poll campaign
Morung Express News
Dimapur | February 16
Top leadership of the Naga People’s Front (NPF) along with Nagaland Chief Minister and NDPP leader Neiphiu Rio are in Senapati district to campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections in Manipur state.
On Wednesday, the NPF’s poll campaign for its 10 candidates kicked off in Senapati town with party leader TR Zeliang emphasising on the Indo-Naga peace talks which according to him, is on the verge of a final breakthrough. Zeliang said that patience is running out and new and social political events have been rapidly taking shape in the society. “However, let us not be distracted but invest our time and energy on to the logical conclusion of the Indo-Naga political issue,” he said, adding that it is important that the Naga people stand to stand together as a single entity. We cannot afford to speak in different voices after 24 years of political dialogue, he asserted.
Zeliang also said that the NPF Party is not only a political party but a people’s movement toward solution for permanent peace in the Northeast region and that it has been playing an instrumental role as an active facilitator. Reiterating his oft-repeated stance that the NPF is the only party that is serious about Naga political issue, he said, it had vigorously pursued early settlement of the Naga political problem with the Government of India at every given opportunity.
To drive his point home, the NPF leader recalled the chronology of events where the NPF played the role of facilitators in the negotiations during the NPF led DAN Government in Nagaland from 2014-2018. Starting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit in November 2014, he said that the Naga political issue was taken up on numerous occasions by the then state government as well as various civil society organisations.
Notably, he said that on July 2015, the Nagaland Legislature Forum met with the PM and central leaders wherein the Prime Minister reportedly said that he was “prepared to sign the Peace Agreement even today if Naga people can accept 80-90% of their demand and keep 10/20% open for future discussion. But if you want 100% at a time, the issue may take even 100 years.”
Zeliang said that the PM’s statement “revealed his positivity and political will-power to resolve the protracted Indo-Naga Political Issue,” and as a result the Framework Agreement was signed on August 3, 2015 and thereafter, the Agreed Position was also entered between Interlocutor RN Ravi and the 7 NNPGs on November 17, 2017.
Further, the NPF leader referred to the December 2017 resolution where 11 political parties and apex civil society organisations in Nagaland decided not to file nominations in the 2018 general elections till the final inking of a Peace Accord. He said that the “golden opportunity” to bring about a solution was missed because of the intervention of the BJP’s National General Secretary Ram Madhav who suspended BJP signatories and “back-stabbed the Naga people.”
“If such historic resolution/agreement was not abrogated by the BJP Party then, Naga Political Solution might have been concluded in 2018,” Zeliang maintained.
The NPF leader who was recently appointed as the Chairperson of the opposition-less United Democratic Alliance in Nagaland further stated that the new alliance was formed based on the necessity to facilitate a peaceful solution to the Naga political issue. He said that the NDPP and NPF are sharing the dais “only for the sake of Naga unity and to address the genuine issues with a common approach so that all kinds of confusion are removed among our people.”
Putting emphasis on regional identity, Zeliang said that Independent candidates, even if elected, are free to shift loyalty to any party. “No party constitution can bind them as per the Tenth Schedule (Anti Defection law). You should be well aware of this fact before casting your valuable votes,” he said.
As for national parties, Zeliang said “Those MLAs belonging to national parties are bound by the so called ‘high command’ from New Delhi who have no knowledge of the ground realities here.” In this connection, he maintained that voting for the NPF would ensure that the people’s representatives “can proudly and without any fear represent the Naga people in the right spirit and for the welfare of the Naga people in the Manipur Assembly and in other platforms.”
While working for the cause of the Naga people, the NPF Party has not shied away from crucial issues threatening the existence of our people such as the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAA) and the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), Zeliang said, adding that the party is prepared and ready to face any obstacle and stand by its motto— solution through peaceful dialogue and not by armed conflict.
