The uber- northeasterner charters his course

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith his successful second visit to Manipur this past week Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio can feel confident that the Naga People’s Front is now well ensconced in the political process in Manipur. The man also has reason to feel a trifle elated since plans to steadily project himself as an acceptable north-easterner is coming around. The latest in his achievement to get his party to concede to contest the Lok Sabha elections and also launch the Manipur state unit of the NPF in Senapati.Last year he cobbled together a loose coalition of political parties, among these Asom Gana Parishad and opposition parties from Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, to form the Northeast Regional Political Front. While it is almost a foregone conclusion that he is more likely than unlikely to win the contest in Nagaland, the electoral tie up with the BJP also ensures that Rio could pitch for a cabinet berth, in the event of a central government helmed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The man himself will also assist the BJP in attaining a stamp of approval of the party’s ‘link’ with development of the region through its Northeast policy and practice. But even as Rio charters his course into the realm of national politics what is being asked and now with increasing frequency as the dates for polling in the state grow closer is what will happen in the state. Who will be Chief Minister and how will Rio still maintain a hold on Nagaland’s politics? Moreover with the entry into Manipur there is the added question of Naga aspiration in Naga-inhabited areas in Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in a future—which as developments indicate could be sooner than later. In the demand for Naga unification from Manipur the rights of ethnic Nagas in Manipur have been primarily fronted by the United Naga Council, and the future could see Rio dealing with the organization. The UNC and its associates have been blunt and vocal on their demand for separate administrative entities for the hill areas of Manipur. They are also known to have launched multifarious forms of protests and road blockades to cripple the strained economy in the Meitei dominated Imphal valley. Even as Rio says he is taking the Naga unity issue into the national hallways it will be prudent to remember that during the previous NDA government, widespread rioting broke out in Imphal Valley in June 2001. This after government interlocutors declared the ceasefire with NSCN (I-M) as extending to all Naga region. The same was interpreted in Manipur as ceding the Naga regions of the state. The government quickly limited the ceasefire to the territory of Nagaland. He will also have to weigh other matters that are confronting the public in Nagaland, issues which the Congress is wasting no time to cash in on. The NPF had recently jibed that the Congress has only produced two manifestos in Nagaland, one the ‘Bedrock of Naga Society’ and the other ’11 years of NPF Misrule in Nagaland’. But with the issue of corruption a core component touching the lives of ordinary people there could well be fodder for the Congress to feed on. The NPF led Dan government will do well to remember that for the first time in decades there has been a collective public reaction and aversion to the ‘illegal taxation” imposed by the underground factions. The frustration that nothing seemingly was being done to arrest the same led to the formation of the Action Committee Against Unabated Taxation, Dimapur (ACAUT) which has now recently been rechristened as “Against Corruption And Unabated Taxation, Nagaland, whose leaders have recently toured the Eastern districts of the state. There is little that the Congress leaders can say for themselves on the issue of corruption as the people of the state have for three consecutive terms re-elected its regional party and leaders back into power. And unlike some states in the country whose electorate don’t always see a winning Lok Sabha from the party in governance,in Nagaland the case does not apply. In the backdrop of such political ‘tradition’ remaining unchanged it would appear that the going is a smooth sail, so far for the NPF as well as its candidate. The gamble then of political fortunes is just as much weighty for the future of both especially in their delivery to the people, from the centre and in the state, in the unprecedented act of a Chief Minister relinquishing office to contest the Lok Sabha.