Newmai News Network
Dimapur | October 16
Opposition Leader in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj of the BJP has told the visiting Nagaland legislators that she understands the Naga problem and assured to help in solving it. She was talking to the 20-member Joint Legislature Forum (JLF) team in New Delhi this morning; a highly placed source informed Newmai News Network today from New Delhi.
“My husband (Swaraj Kaushal) was one time government’s interlocutor for the Naga peace talk and I understand the issue,” Sushma Swaraj was reported to have said this to the Nagaland MLAs when the latter met her.
Later in the afternoon, the JLF met Centre’s interlocutor R.S Pandey who then gave them a long lecture on the issue. R.S Pandey and the Naga legislators were reported to have spent four hours today. Yesterday, the JLF had met Sushil Kumar Shinde, Sharad Yadav, Sharad Pawar, Th, Muivah and others. It is clear now that the Nagaland legislators are building up a situation to have consensus among the political parties and then eventually to pass a kind of resolution to settle the vexed Naga political issue.
The JLF which has been floated few months ago by the 60 MLAs of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly cutting across party lines had already camped in the national capital some three months ago and met many Central leaders while pressing for the early settlement of the Naga political issue.
On October 9, Chief Minister of Nagaland Neiphiu Rio had said that it was hopeful that the government of India and the Naga outfits would take advantage of this opportunity to find an amicable settlement. “If this opportunity is missed, I don’t know whether such opportunity will come back to our people during our lifetime,” Neiphiu Rio was quoted as saying by a Dimapur newspaper.
At the backdrop of this picture, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had commented that the settlement pertaining to Naga political issue would be brought about by March next year, the time before the next assembly election of Nagaland.
