The hustle and bustle of electioneering has finally come to close with focus now shifting to government formation and putting an action plan for running the country. Closer home in Nagaland as well, things have now cooled off with all eyes now on the ruling NPF government, which is expected to take some important decisions such as reviewing the composition of the present ministry, the passing of a full-fledged Budget and getting on with the development agenda. However, whether it is election time or not the one common denominator remains the same—the struggle for power and the games politicians play towards this end. The impact of the Parliamentary Elections in Nagaland has been immediate and significant with the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) now virtually in disarray following the State unit of the BJP merging with the ruling NPF. The legitimacy of the other partner JD (U) has also come into doubt, which leaves the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in a precarious position of having to listen to the NPF while its leadership in Delhi and the Northeast remains confused over its political space in the quest for power.
To add a point here, the manner in which NCP leader and former Speaker of the Lok Sabha PA Sangma has handled the recent situations during the pre-poll and post-poll time both in Meghalaya, Delhi and the Northeast region leaves much to be desired. Sangma’s game of politics has lost its credibility and it will not be a surprise if the Nagaland unit of the NCP also goes the BJP way. The only thing playing in the mind of Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio would be that both he and Sangma go a long way as far as coalescing together on an anti-Congress platform goes. But Rio should by now realize that his friend Sangma has been attempting to do serious business with the Congress. Interestingly Sangma came to Nagaland during the Lok Sabha election campaign and reaffirmed his anti-Congress tirade in the company of the NPF leaders including Rio. A few days later, Sangma senior was negotiating with the Central Congress leaders to share power in Meghalaya. It is another matter that this power sharing deal failed to take off because Sangma was too ambitious and could not get the bargain he was looking for.
Then all of a sudden the former Lok Sabha Speaker again attacked the Congress and even had the cheek to publicly suggest that the Congress in Delhi support a government headed by NCP Chief Sharad Pawar as Prime Minister. Further expecting the NDA Alliance to come back to power, Sangma publicly announced that he would contribute at least 4 or 5 MPs to the BJP led NDA kitty. The former Speaker had also urged Sharad Pawar to dump the Congress and explore other options for a non-Congress government at the Centre. Interestingly Rio and party have also been part of this Sangma group rallying for the anti-Congress parties to come together in the Northeast.
These were all off-course before the election result. Everything has now changed ever since the Congress secured over 200 seats and the UPA stormed back to power at the Centre. The so called Northeast People’s Forum of which both Rio and Sangma had been integral part of, is now today an irrelevant force. It is an irony that the quest for power brought the forum into reality while now the same quest for power has led to its debacle. Rio and his NPF has now extended unconditional support to the Congress led UPA for obvious reasons, some of which is acceptable to some extent, purely from the point of serving the interest of the State. However as far as Sangma senior goes, the kind of posturing and reckless outburst that he indulged in before the results, one feels sorry that the same person is now wooing the Congress party for a ministerial berth for her daughter NCP MP Agatha Sangma, which she finally got. All this after Sangma had made it a matter of policy that the NCP would not have any truck with the Congress in the north-east. This is the heights of power and opportunism.
