Kohima: The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) through its Media Cell has said the ‘claim’ by NPF president and DAN chairman Dr. Shurhozelie for ‘consensus candidate’ for the state’s lone Lok Sabha seat smacked of ‘veiled arrogance’, a hallmark of the NPF-led DAN Government that was basking in ‘the glory of their purchased mandate’.
In a release, NPCC Media Cell was reacting to the call for a consensus candidate for the Lok Sabha seat made by the Naga Peoples Front President after the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland formally announced state Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio as the candidate.
It said it rejected the word ‘consensus’ as it was being loosely used by the NPF and its President ‘to assert their viewpoint’.
It pointed out that after DAN endorsed the candidature of Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio as Lok Sabha candidate, the question of Congress agreeing to a consensus by backing Rio was ‘a farfetched dream’.
The release asserted that NPCC would not shy away from the electoral battle when the chief minister was the ruling coalition candidate and in response, the NPCC promised to ‘unveil a formidable candidate to challenge the chief minister’.
It charged the chief minister of having miserably failed in the past 11 years and then ‘conveniently charting an escape route from the huge mess that has been generated as a result of his misrule’
It maintained that it did not augur well for a Christian majority state like Nagaland when as per the ‘present trend of the NPF and their chief minister’ hobnobbing with the BJP, a party having ideological moorings with the RSS. It said the RSS is even despised by the majority of liberal Hindus due to its communally divisive agenda.
NPCC counter-appealed to the NPF that if the party was interested in sending a consensus candidate ‘to represent the Nagas, as repeatedly claimed’, then NPF should throw its weight behind the Congress candidate, regardless of the ideological differences between the NPF and NPCC.
The NPCC said this was to prevent the communal and divisive forces headed by the BJP from carrying out their ‘hidden agenda’ where the religious minorities and oppressed castes had no place in the idea of a nationhood.
Citing the history of MPs of the NPF during the past decade, NPCC said all had resigned before completing their terms and termed it as an ‘insult to the mandate’ to represent the people in Parliament. (UNI)
