Kohima, Feb. 3: Nagaland Tribes Action Committee (NTAC) and the Zeliang Elders’ Forum have joined various other organisations in demanding the chief minister TR Zeliang to resign after the events that unfolded since the State cabinet decided to go ahead with the ULB elections.
NTAC, in a letter addressed to the chief minister, stated that ever since the ULB elections was put into motion, the people of Nagaland have been voicing against the controversial Municipal Council Act.
“As the Chief Minister of the State, you should have been more conscientious to the voices raised so that meeting point could evolve. Instead, you became arrogant and insensitive to the sentiments so expressed by the tribal organisations.
“In connivance with few women leaders and few of your colleagues who have been determined to have frontal confrontation with the public, the popular voice of the public was set aside. Your attitude and undermining the established situation is the basis for violence in which two youths were killed and several others were injured by police firing,” the NTAC stated.
“Mr. Chief Minister, you have miserably failed, you have the audacity to treat the Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) as nothing and you have considered Naga life as equally nothing. You have totally lost sense of responsibility as the leader of the state. Since you are solely responsible for all the mess created in Nagaland today, we have unanimously resolved to demand you to step down immediately. Your demitting the office you hold now is the only option to pave the way for normalcy and peace to return,” the committee demanded.
In a separate release, the Zeliang Elders' Forum (ZEF) Peren has fervently urged the chief minister TR Zeliang to have “sense, honour, humility” and immediately resign from public office owning moral responsibility for the turn of events and havoc created with the conduct of ULB election against the wishes of the popular opinion and forced to turn the situation into bloodshed where the lives of two youth were lost.
The Elders Forum accused the chief minister of having miserably failed to meet the aspirations and expectations of the people of Nagaland, saying “perhaps due to his personal greed and casualness in discharging his given duties.” It stated that during the short span of TR Zeliang’s chief ministership, he had done more damage than good.
“Whatever might be the physical and sentimental harms inflicted on the people of Nagaland, please do not blame the Zeliang tribe as a whole as we do not approve his way of managing the affairs of the state,” the ZEF stated. It further urged the chief minister to “have sense of shame and responsibility” over the whole situation under his stewardship and pave the way for peace and normalcy by resigning from the post “without waiting for more bloodshed in Nagaland.”
The release was endorsed by ZEF convenor, Itingteibe Siang.
