EMN
DIMAPUR, JUNE 18
The BJP in Nagaland has announced that it would abstain from all DAN coordination meetings until Chief Minister Zeliang and the DAN chairman could clarify on whether the present ruling dispensation is a coalition government of DAN-III or an all-party government.
The BJP’s assertion, according to a press release from the party’s state president Dr M Chuba Ao, has been prompted by the recent use of “all-party government nomenclature” by the state Congress. “The mandate of the Naga people was given to DAN-III government and not to all party government. Congress and DAN alliance parties had fought the last election as bitter enemies,” Ao stated.
He also pointed out that an all-party government was out of the question since independent legislators were also included in the present government. “The hostile climate generated by Congress legislators’ entry into the government will not be in the best interest of the Naga people,” he said while adding that his party would leave it to the “wisdom” of the chief minister “to decide.”
The Nagaland BJP chief pulled no punches while hitting out at the “hypocrisy” of the Congress which, he said, was exposed when the suspended Congress legislators had responded to the charges from BJP.“CLP had implied that there was no solution in the past because Congress had not joined the ruling government,” he reminded, while sarcastically observing that since the Congress has joined the government now Nagas would have no problem in finding the solution.
He said that since the CLP has “owned up the responsibility for finding early solution”, the same responsibility should be applied to the CLP “should there be failure.” Ao went on to remind the Congress that prior to the 2013 elections, the party had charge-sheeted the NPF government with allegations of corruption and even released the booklet titled, Ten years of NPF misrule in Nagaland.
“Now, they have joined the very government they had charge-sheeted just yesterday. Wasn’t that swallowing own vomit?”
He stated that as long as the alliance between NPF and NDA remains, as committed by both the parties on March 19, 2014, the BJP has “every business” to question the entry of Congress into the DAN alliance in Nagaland. “The suspended Congress leaders also should know that being in the government, it was not appropriate on their part to criticize NDA policies and programs,” he added.
