National People’s Party Nagaland clarifies on mass resignation, calls rebel members ‘rotten apples’

Dimapur, June 28 (EMN): The National People’s Party (NPP) Nagaland State unit has expressed shock over the “unconstitutional manner in which some handful and dissident members of the party” had tendered a mass resignation at a press conference in Dimapur, alleging loss of faith on its state unit president Andrew Ahoto Sema.

In a clarification issued just hours after the mass resignation was announced, the party claimed that the “handful of members who have tendered their resignation do not even comprise 2% of the total party strength contrary to their claims that they comprise 80% of the party”.

“The members who have tendered their resignation are the dissident group of the party, the rotten apples, who were sooner or later going to be suspended from the party due to numerous anti-party activities which they had been carrying out for the past many months in order to topple the leadership of the party due to their ulterior and selfish designs,” read the statement.

Accusing the dissident group of being selfish and vehemently trying their best to destabilise the party and bring about mistrust among the members, it said they were resorting to “back-door false campaigns and anti-party activities so that they can gain control of the party helms and thereby manipulate the party according to their whims”.

“NPP Nagaland would like to further clarify that we have a well established party constitution and ideology according to which every party functionary conducts oneself.  No one is above the party and its ethics,” it said, adding that the rebels had used all kinds of negative tactics to bring about disrepute to the name and good public standing of the state president and other senior leaders of the party.

“Due to all their anti-party activities, even the national leaders had taken due cognizance of their negative impacts on the smooth functioning of the party and had advised the State President to reorganize the party rank and file and thereby bring about a complete overhauling of the party in the state by taking out the negative elements who were hell-bent upon creating ruckus and upheavals in the party,” it said.

“As to their claim that they had been adhering to the party constitution, we would like to question their sincerity of the claim when they had out rightly rejected the very basis of the party constitution by involving in groupism, disharmony, back-biting and gossiping with the intent of tarnishing the good image of the party and its leaders,” it added.

The party went on to accuse the rebel members of committing “the highest form of treason against the party and its tenets by resorting to an unconstitutional signature campaign which was never endorsed by either the national or the state leadership”.

“Regarding the district presidents who have tendered their resignations from Mon, Tuensang, Kiphire, Longleng and Mokokchung districts, it should be noted once and for all that these leaders were stumbling blocks in the progress of the party who had always utilized the party resources for their own selfish agendas. They had never tried to put their sincere efforts in increasing the party membership in any of the districts which they represented,” said the party, adding that new convenors and presidents of these districts had been appointed.

“Due to all of the above and the very fact that most of the frontal bodies of the party including the NPYF and the State Women Wing and also some of the districts as mentioned above were not even expanding the party membership and practically there was no activity at all in the context of how a normal political party should function. And hence, it was pertinent for the party leadership to cleanse the party of such members. Therefore some of the members who had tendered their resignations had already been relieved of their duties in the party due to their non performance,” it said.

“Lastly, but not the least, NPP Nagaland is growing from strength to strength at all the fronts including in all the districts and we are enthusiastically working towards the overall growth, development and progress of the masses. In such a positive win-win situation for our party, it has rather come as a great sigh of relief that such dissident, wayward and undisciplined members of the party have sidelined themselves and resigned en masse. We feel that this is a very welcome sign for our party and we rejoice in the fact that now we can look forward with greater anticipation for further strengthening our party at all levels under the dynamic and able leadership of our present parent body leaders led by our State President, Dr. Andrew Ahoto Sema,” it added.