[dropcap]N[/dropcap]o matter how much clarifications are issued by the NPF and the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) on the position of the State government they will find no markets. The media or the general public will not be convinced that everything is well in the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) government-III under TR Zeliang. Dissident voices of the NPF legislators are here to stay. In the past few months discontentment among the NPF legislators has been threatening the survival of the TR Zeliang government. In fact, what the newspapers have reported was only a tip of an iceberg. We tend not to report everything that comes to our knowledge. Today, the DAN-III is shaky. We have carried a news item or two on the issue. The NPF and the Chief Minister himself had sharply reacted to our news dismissing those reports as baseless and unfounded. Inspite of such repeated clarifications there is no respite to discontented legislators politicking heavily to achieve what they intend to have.TR Zeliang has been heading the DAN-III for over five months now. Things seemed to be taking off well albeit there were noises created by those relegated legislators. But five months into the running of the government voices of disgruntled legislators have come to the public domain. It is likely to be more vocal in the days to come.
It is all the more becoming speculative due to the silence maintained by minister for public health engineering department Noke Wangnao and minister for industries and commerce Kaito Ayeh whose names have been doing the round as the front-runners for the chief minister’s Kursi. No politician will have that limit of patience whose name is speculated in that light if he is not really vying for the top post. The mild pandemonium would have been calmed long ago if Kaito and Noke have openly clarified to the issue.
Meanwhile, reports or clarifications are here to stay pertaining to the DAN-III infighting. As said ‘anything is possible in politics’ since there is no ‘permanent foe or friend’ in the game there is nothing that one should be surprise too in the event of any big drastic changeover of the TR Zeliang government.
Meanwhile, one cannot cheaply ignore the BJP factor here. Its big Delhi brother is closely watching.
It has also come to the open now that ‘all is not well’ regarding the ties between the NPF and the BJP. The blow-hot, blow-cold relationship between the two parties will depend on how the DAN-III as a whole can be more cohesive and wholesome.
