Kohima: The Naga People’s Front (NPF) central office has written to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), V.S. Sampath, to “save the honour of all the Nagas who stand humiliated” by Rahul Gandhi’s remarks on the Naga peace process by imposing an “interim embargo” on Gandhi “pending a probe” into his remarks.
An NPF Media Cell release on Sunday said that the official complaint, filed by Secretary General of NPF, K.G. Kenye, alleged that Gandhi, Chief Campaigner of the Congress Party, “openly and unabashedly lied” at his public rally in Kohima on March 27 that Chief Minister of Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio, had “promised to solve the Naga Political Problem within 3 months of coming to power in 2003” and also asked Rio to “deliver on his promise.”
The NPF maintained that such a commitment is “baseless and unfounded in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) at any time.”
It noted that under the Constitution of India, the resolution of the “Naga Political problem rests with the Union Government and not with the State Government.”
Asserting that the Naga political problem is a “sensitive issue affecting every Naga,” the NPF registered that “any misleading statement would have serious security, social and electoral ramifications thereby destroying the very fundamentals of free, fair and objective elections.”
The NPF urged the CEC to ascertain whether “a lie on a very sensitive issue was deliberately uttered” by Gandhi; whether “such a lie needs to be retracted by him in public in a similar rally”; whether “any severe punishment including an embargo on his movement in the election campaigning for breaching ethics and probity in electioneering, is to be imposed” on Gandhi; whether Gandhi should be “further punished for burying the history of failures of the Congress Party in betraying the Nagas and the Naga cause in not solving on time the Indo-Naga Political Problem despite all the 60 Legislators’ Forum urged the GOI to solve the issue before the last Assembly Election”; and whether “the Congress Party should be debarred from contesting elections in the North Eastern States” since Gandhi’s remarks have “jeopardized peace and security in the fragile North Eastern Region?”
Meanwhile, in a separate release from the NPF Press and Media Bureau alleged that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was “brainwashed by the Nagaland Congress” on the Naga political issue.
Attacking the Congress for the decline in growth of India’s economy when the UPA was in power, it questioned “If the national growth rate is in reverse gear, how does Rahul Gandhi expect the States of the Indian union to be any better.”
The NPF said that Nagaland, on the other hand, had performed ‘exceptionally well’ in the past ten years.
The NPF then went on to question that ‘Nagaland has not even been sanctioned its due share of plan funds and where is the question of sanctioning 300 Crores for roads.’
It clarified that ‘the special package announced by the Centre for the ENPO districts to the tune of 300 Crores has never materialized.’ It also alleged that the Congress led UPA ‘denied’ the Naga people the Prime Minister’s package in 2003 announced by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. (UNI)