DIMAPUR, FEBRUARY 25 (MExN): Nagaland State Lok Sabha MP Neiphiu Rio on Thursday made his position clear vis-a-vis his educational qualification certificate.
According to his statement, Rio graduated from Kohima Arts College, NEHU in 1978. In the year 2012, since his degree certificate “could not be traced,” his office requested the Kohima College authorities to issue a provisional degree certificate which accordingly was issued by the College on December 4, 2012, Rio noted in a public statement today.
“No request was made whatsoever to issue a provisional certificate mentioning qualification as B.A (Hon),” Rio stated. He further noted that “it appears that at the time of issuing the certificate instead of B.A. Pass course they ticked B.A. (Hon.).” Rio added that after the said provisional certificate was issued, it was placed in the file and “the error that had inadvertently crept in went unnoticed.”
The Nagaland MP sought to point out that the entries in the educational qualification column during his previous elections, including the assembly elections in 2013 correctly read as B.A Pass, as supervised by his personal secretary. This fact, Rio pointed out has not been adverted to by those making the allegation against him.
However, during the Lok Sabha elections 2014, “those who supervised” the details of the typed entries had “gone by the erroneous certificate inadvertently issued by Kohima College,” he maintained.
Rio said the error committed in the provisional certificate by Kohima College came to his knowledge in October, 2015 and in pursuance, issued a communication categorically informing that, “I have studied and graduated from Kohima College in the year 1978 under roll no. 436. I did not take Honours in the Political Science as entered in the document attached. You are requested to rectify the error and issue a correct one at the earliest.”
In response, on October 9, 2015, the Kohima College issued a corrigendum clarifying that the B.A (Hon) certificate issued on 2012 had an inadvertent error, he informed. On receipt of these details an affidavit was submitted to the Chief Election Officer, Nagaland giving the “factual picture” supported with all the documents which led to the error committed by the Kohima College and also the corrigendum issued by them, he added.
In the RTI application dated December 8, 2015, Rio informed that a question was raised as to “whether I had made any application for obtaining Political Science Honours Certificate.” The response given in the RTI, as per the MP, was “No application for Political Science Honours Certificate was received.” “This fact has been willfully suppressed,” alleged Rio.
The Nagaland MP went on to state that in all the editions of Who’s Who publication of Nagaland Legislative Assembly since 1989 till date, his qualification is shown as B.A Pass in the profile/bio-data.
Even in the bio-data submitted to the Lok Sabha, the educational qualification is shown as B.A and not B.A (Hon) Political Science, he said. Further, in the detailed Performa in the Lok Sabha of June 11, 2014, his educational qualification has been shown as B.A, Rio pointed out.
