Delimitation: Will seek what’s best for people on Nagaland, says Along

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Sep. 7 (EMN): The minister for Higher and Technical Education and Tribal Affairs, Temjen Imna Along, who is also the state BJP president, said that Nagaland government will ‘press for what is best for the people of the state’, in relation to the delimitation exercise.

While interacting with journalists on the sidelines of an event in Kohima on Monday, he said that the government will see what the members of the commission on delimitation recommend during their scheduled visit to Nagaland.

With due ‘concurrence’, the government will execute it and press for what is best for the people, Along added. 

He also maintained that what he had proposed in his letter to the central leaders on delimitation, a few months ago, was what the Cabinet had discussed during its meetings and ‘it was nothing personal’.

Meanwhile, he stated that they (People’s Democratic Alliance) are ‘not aware’ why the opposition Naga People’s Front (NPF) had to pull out from the Joint Legislative Forum (JLF). He asserted that the JLF was not defunct. “If they (NPF) want to rejoin the JLF after a few months, they are welcome to do so”.

On the Naga political issue, Along maintained that the state BJP unit will support what the prime minister is trying to do — ‘the commitment towards the people of Nagaland to have a solution as soon as possible’.

“We await for the prime minister of India and the government of India and all the negotiating parties to do their best,” he said, adding that the BJP is a ‘high command party’; until and unless Delhi gives order to do anything, the ‘Nagaland BJP will not move’.

Reacting to report of senior BJP functionaries from the state meeting the negotiating parties in Delhi, he maintained that the party in Nagaland has more than 3.65 lakh members and “any member can go and meet anyone but it is not official”.