Former Congress leader Chishi makes eye at BJP

Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Jan. 21 (EMN): Former chief minister of Nagaland KL Chishi who resigned from the Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) and Indian National Congress (INC) on Jan.20 said that the decision was “hard and extreme” after being in the party for more than a decade.
The politician told a press conference on Sun. that his resignation was caused by ‘trust deficit in spite of repeated submission and advice to the appropriate authority of INC for the last over one year.’
The veteran politician, who intends to contest from the 32nd Atoizu assembly constituency, refused to name the party he would be joining except that it will ‘definitely be a national party.’ To a query if he still covets the chief minister’s seat, Chishi replied “Ambitions never die.”
Chishi went on to say, “With much regret I say that INC has no mind to bring settlement for Naga political issue with Nagas and India. Only a national party with daring determination like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can bring final solution and I would rather suggest that it is only BJP who has the guts to initiate and finalise the solution between the government of India and people of Nagaland”.
According to him, there was no point in remaining with the Congress ‘who has a dream that cannot be fulfilled.’ Chishi asserted that a ‘resource-less regional party’ can never promote the ethos of Nagas, while reminding that the regional party had ‘made false promises’ since 2008 to bring solution to the Naga talks within six months.
There is ‘unreasonable’ corruption in the present government and the worst five years in the history of Nagaland have been produced by the current government, Chishi claimed. He accused the state’s government of draining the state exchequer, robbing funds meant for the people and development, and ridiculed ‘it is a shameful thing for our state legislators to go to Kaziranga for their selfish needs.’
Chishi went on to disclose that the ‘INC had its own infighting…everyone considers themselves as an important person.’ For two and half years the incumbent president has been leading the Congress without any single legislator, Chishi remarked.
“The Naga people want solution as expressed and elections cannot be hold back unless it is by unconstitutional means or force. Election is essence of democracy and it has to be held,” Chishi said.
Recalling how the Congress claimed power in 1998 by filing nominations even as the Naga people ‘solution not election,’ Chishi pointed out that even as the Congress managed to win 59 seats then, they bore the consequences in 2003 elections as their number was reduced to 21.
“I had to take this extreme painful step as I had no alternative option but to quit for several reasons, some of them are not very important,” Chishi said.