NPCC confident of exploiting split in NPF vote bank

[caption id="attachment_115687" align="alignleft" width="263"] Dr Jayakumar[/caption] Staff Reporter Dimapur, May 16 (EMN): Apparently, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) is “comfortable” with the status that the Congress party in Nagaland currently finds itself in. “It is not that bad and I am comfortable with it,” the AICC secretary in-charge of Nagaland, Dr Jayakumar on Tuesday told reporters in Dimapur during a press conference. Jayakumar was making the statement in the backdrop of a state-wide tour that began on March 7 last. In the intervening period, he informed, Jayakumar had covered the districts of Wokha, Kohima, Mokokchung, Zunheboto, Longleng, Mon and Dimpaur via road. The remaining three districts – Peren, Phek and Kiphire – had sent representatives to meet him in Dimapur, he informed. While admitting that some of the district Congress committees were in need of “drastic changes”, he said the overall status of the party was “not that bad”. The Congress, he said, was actually “comfortable” with the current status. When pressed to explain, he said that in the last elections the Congress candidates had lost their seats to narrow margins. This, he said, would be neutralized this time since “NPF votes would be split among three leaders – Dr Shurhozelie, TR Zeliang and Neiphiu Rio”. He claimed that the Congress vote bank would remain intact, despite eight of its legislators joining the NPF ranks. While claiming that he has done his homework, Jayakumar said that the split expected in NPF vote bank would work in favour of the Congress. The AICC leader also informed that the Congress would stick to its tradition of not naming chief ministerial candidate during the elections. “We are the most democratic of all parties and we will ensure that it is the elected representatives who decide the chief minister”, he said. Simply because the BJP and the NPF follows the trend of naming chief ministerial candidates prior to election campaigns does not mean that the Congress has to follow suit, he argued. Jayakumar claimed that the Congress workers in Nagaland were “agile and all geared up for the elections”. He also remarked that the “infrastructure” he has seen in Nagaland during his recent travel across the districts was “the worst”. Nagaland, he said, was immersed in corruption. “For everything and anything, there should be payment”. There are no roads, “not even mud roads”, he noted. While forging alliance with the BJP, he pointed out, NPF supremo and current chief minister, Dr Shurhozelie Liezietsu had reasoned that “money will flow like water in the river” into Nagaland from the centre. “Nothing has been done with the money received from the centre”, he said. On the framework agreement signed between New Delhi and the NSCN (IM), he wondered why ‘the Naga people are still keeping silence’ over the signatories’ refusal to make public the contents of said agreement. “Who will gain (out of this agreement)? Who will lose? And in what way? This has to be said,” he felt. Even the signing of the framework agreement by Narendra Modi was, according to Jayakumar, “based on the foundations built by the Congress government”. On the national front, he said that the BJP has ‘failed miserably’. Prime minister Modi, he said, was going to celebrate three years of failure very soon. According to Jayakumar the emergence of cow vigilantes and anti-Romeo squads across the country was an indication of how the country has “progressed” under the BJP. Describing the cow vigilantes and members of anti-Romeo squads as “the scoundrels of the society”, he questioned Modi as to ‘under which law is he allowing the functioning of the private army of the RSS’. The BJP at the centre, he claimed, was a vindictive government. Jayakumar was accompanied by the former chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Nabam Tuki, who has been appointed as the Pradesh Returning officer of Nagaland for the forthcoming state elections.