Congress hits back at Narendra Modi for ‘remote controlling Nagaland’ claim

Just hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed in his speech at a joint public rally of NDPP-BJP alliance in Chümoukedima on Friday that the Congress party was “remote controlling” Nagaland and using north-eastern states like an ATM (automated teller machine) during its regime, the Congress hit back saying that it was the other way round.

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Addressing a press conference on Friday at Congress Bhavan in Dimapur, AICC Media Coordinator of Nagaland, Mahima Singh, claimed that the BJP acted as an ATM for the NDPP government and held the chief minister of Nagaland “hostage”.

Singh alleged that the BJP initially offers itself as the ATM to the regional parties before resorting to blackmailing business. She added that ‘remote control is BJP’s tool to switch democracy to autocracy and that they are on a party eradication spree’.

She claimed that the Naga political issue was on the brink of being resolved during the Manmohan Singh government but the ambiguity has been consistently intensified after the BJP came to power.

While pointing out that the BJP didn’t make a slightest mention of the Naga political issue in its manifesto for this election, she said the leaders of the saffron party could face the public without being questioned despite not fulfilling its previous promise.

On NPCC President K Therie’s election agent Kikhevi Yepthomi joining BJP, the party’s state unit chairperson of communications department, Wezote Kreo, said that the reason for the former Congress member to join a party, whose ideology he had opposed for two decades, would be best known to him.

However, he said Yepthomi has defied the loyalty and trust the party had put in him for years. He added that many have come and gone before him, and the Congress party will continue to stand tall against all odds.

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