Karaiba Chawang
Touphema | February 25
State Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio today ruled out any misunderstanding amongst the DAN coalition partners with regard to the forthcoming bye-election in two assembly constituencies of the state, Tuensang Sardar-II and Dimapur-1. He however expressed confidence that the NPF party would win the two seats.
Rio, in a tête-à-tête with pressmen on the sidelines of Sekhrenyi festival at Touphema, said that the NPF and its allies have no problem as far as the bye-election is concerned and further reiterated on going in for friendly contests.
“We have no problem on this. We will go for a friendly contest”, Rio said, stating that the DAN coalition partners have an understanding on this arrangement and will go ahead with it.
Asked about the modus operandi of the elections, Rio said that he belonged to the NPF party and will campaign only for his party candidate. “I belong to the NPF party so I will campaign for the party candidate. I don’t know about the other party”, Rio added.
Bye-election in the two assembly constituencies is slated to be held March 8 next.
With the countdown to the bye-election drawing near, all major political parties are reported to have been resorting to heavy politicking in both the constituencies. In Tuensang, BJP candidature was earlier rejected by the Returning Officer on technical ground, while their party observer went missing on the day of scrutiny, and alleged that the later was made to sign a ‘bond’ under duress by gunmen.
Meanwhile, Rio once again reiterated that factional clashes was part of the political problem and said that it should be the combined duty of the Government of India and the state government to contain such law and order problem arising out of the factional clash.
“To deal with the undergrounds under the ceasefire ground rule is not easy”, Chief Minister said. He said that the state government had sufficient force to stop factional clash in the civilian areas, if force have to be applied, but, the state government is using a patient approach as the use of force will create unwanted situations further.
“They are no more unlawful organizations, so we cannot deal with them like the unlawful”, Rio maintained, while asserting that the state government is only looking at how to stop the warring factions from fighting.
“We need to be patient”, he said, and rubbished the Opposition’s charge that factional clashes are a law and order problem and the present government has failed to contain to it.
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