Dimapur, November 5 (MExN): The Rising People’s Party (RPP) has flayed the recent notification by the Dimapur Municipal Council (DMC) allowing the opening of shops on Sunday for the festive season and normalizing the “Sabbath day as any other day of the week.”
In a press release, the RPP questioned how the DMC issued such a notification “garbed in the so-called ‘Festive Season’” while no other Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have taken such a measure and wondered whether it succumbed to pressure.
To buttress its assertion, the party maintained that “Nagaland is a Christian state” and every other citizen of India who has made the State their home is a “guest.” This fundamental should be understood by the DMC before declaring Sunday as a day of business transactions, it added.
The RPP further linked the development to the State Government giving “undue importance to the Hornbill Festival while utterly neglecting the sacrilege being committed on Sabbath days by its affiliated agencies such as the DMC.” It further contended that the Sabbath/Christmas is not to be “trivialized nor commercialized” as any citizen should have ample time to exercise their shopping activities during the weekdays.
Accordingly, it accused the DMC of hurting the “sentiments of devout Christians by taking advantage of the Christmas season.”
On the opening of shops on Sundays, the RPP, meanwhile, noted that all the legislators of the different political parties along with the various church organizations should come to a consensus.
Calling for taking the matter seriously, the RPP batted for not straying from the core Christian “ethics and principles” and cautioned that if the stakeholders do not take corrective measures now, the coming generation of Nagas will end up “spiritual illiterates” which the party deemed as “wokes.”
