THE NPF crises fails to die down as the rift among the Legislators continue to be in the limelight time and again with the recent suspension of the two senior NPF leaders. The crises started brewing when the former chief minister Neiphiu Rio in 2013 decided to contest in the Lok Sabha election of 2014. Initially the DAN legislators were unwilling to release him of his services in the state but eventually made him the DAN consensus candidate for the Lok Sabha polls. Once the path was clear for him to contest the Lok Sabha polls, Neiphiu Rio first named Noke Wangnao the veteran regionalist to be his successor in the event of him leaving the state. It is said that Noke Wangnao at first had the support of all the Eastern Naga MLAs across party lines. Then the event that unfolded next is still shrouded in mystery for the electorates of how the senior party leaders who were entrusted to form the consensus of Noke as the successor had failed. Though speculations are rife it is still not yet discussed in the public domain and that information is kept away from the public that voted and returned the 38 NPF legislatures to the House, a thumping victory unprecedented in the history of the NPF. Even in 1977 the then regional party UDF could return only 35 victorious candidates.
The President of the NPF had reported in one of the leading newspapers that “The transition would be smooth and there is nothing to worry about.” It now turns out that without any satisfactory explanation to the people, that the transition was not so smooth. It can be safely assumed that it only brewed the crises within the NPF that the State and the Party are witnessing till now. At the height of the Rio’s busy campaign in the state as well as the other North Eastern States for the NPF as well as the North East Regional Parties Front that he along with the AJP of Assam and some other regional parties of the North East had launched, there started a signature campaign within the NPF. During the last crises starting from January 2015 when the matter also went up to the ECI, it was alleged that this document was used as a leverage that would invite disqualification from the party for those going against it.
So by the time the Lok Sabha polls were over, though Noke’s name was still touted by some party men and a few of the NPF Divisions in the districts the fate of T.R.Zeliang to be the next Chief Minister was sealed. The NPF central office went up to the extent of asking all the media houses “not to publish any article or press releases issued by any NPF Division/Unit of the party on the issue of successor to chief minister Nephiu Rio after results of the Lok Sabha poll and that the earlier statements by some divisions/units were all done without the consent of NPF Central Office”. It is a glaring example of how internal party democracy is yet to take a strong foothold among the political parties in the state. Noticing the ensuing rift, Neiphiu Rio requested Noke to withdraw the race for the CM’s post citing majority support for T.R. Zeliang and just a few days before the Lok Sabha results, Noke officially withdrew his candidature on the 12th of May 2014.
With a near crises almost over the second crises for Chief Minister and the Party president was started as soon as the government was formed. It is not a secret that the reason for the second crises started due to the Chief Minister not re-inducting some of the senior ministers under Rio in the new ministry. For many of the legislatures and the public as well it was a refresher course in the Indian Political System that when a Chief Minster resigns even his council of ministers gets dissolved once his resignation is accepted. So it becomes the prerogative of the incumbent Chief Minister to appoint his councils of minister of his choosing. If this line from the text books of political science was misused or not is for the people to judge. But it is speculated that in the race between T.R.Zeliang and Noke those who supported Noke or were with Neiphiu Rio earlier were dropped in the new ministry.
