From CK Nayak
New Delhi: The MPs from the North East, who have been ignored during the Sunday’s Cabinet rejig, will take up the issue with the Prime Minister as the monolithic ruling BJP has pandered only to the big states going for polls overlooking the case of eight NE states.
Sources said the NE MPs may call on Narendra Modi after he returns from his tour abroad to press for accommodating aspirations of the region.
The much awaited expansion neither took veteran Punro Agitok Sangma, NPP supremo from Meghalaya nor former Nagaland Chief Minister Nephiu Rio of NPF, both of whom are coalition partners of the BJP-led NDA. While Purno might head the proposed National Himalayan Mission with a Cabinet rank nothing is heard about maverick Rio who even resigned from chief ministership and contested Lok Sabha polls eyeing for a cabinet berth under the NDA regime.
It is a different matter that while BJP is a part of NPF Government led by Rio for a second term in Nagaland it contested against NPF candidate during the last bye elections to the state assembly in Nagaland. To rub salt in the wound main opposition Congress did not put up a candidate and Rio’s bête noirie former Chief Minister Mr S C Jamir still continues as a Governor even under NDA Government.
With the exercise Modi has put in place a new order by expanding his cabinet to achieve four broad objectives: blend the old with the new to create a pool of talent; strike a caste balance that spells social inclusiveness. But at the same time and more importantly, he tried to extend the party’s geographic reach, particularly in poll-bound states like Bihar and West Bengal where it will battle regional and region based forces.
None of the eight North East states face elections next year, only Assam is slated for polls in 2016 where BJP has already improved its position. But for the landlocked region the aim of the BJP, it seems, is to develop the party base in North East on its own strength rather than taking a piggy back ride on regional parties, observers feel.
The party feels that none of the regional parties including the once famous AGP could face twin problems facing the North East-insurgency and infiltration even though they make a hue and cry over it from time to time. Now time has come when this volatile reigion has to be saved from the emographic destabilization, one senior party leader said on conditions of anonymity.
This is despite the fact, out of eight of the total 25 Lok Sabha seats Assam alone has given seven to BJP with the only one from Arunachal Pradesh. But the party wants to capitalize on this wave when the polls draw closer, observers said.
Undeniably, from the North East there is no outstanding talent available for the BJP within the party. Purno contested for Presidential polls as an ally but has not joined the party so far. On the other hand, BJP which had once as many as three MLAs one of whom even held Home portfolio in Meghalaya is trying on its own at least in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills.
Modi has also given chances to those who have migrated from other parties notably Birender Singh and Ram Kripal Yadav who defeated his former mentor and RJD supremo’s daughter Misa. The third set of leaders are those who are expected to complement Modi in the state elections coming up in the near future, specially in Bihar in 2015, West Bengal in 2016 and UP in 2017 where it will fight the regional forces like the SP, BSP, RJD, LJP, the Trinamool Congress.
The only states that are now left unrepresented in the total of 66 member council of ministers are Kerala and northeastern states like Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya and Sikkim where the BJP does not have any presence and Uttarakhand where it is strong. This is in sharp contrast when veterans like Punro and Dinesh Goswami were Union law minister, another of the few names from the region. Then there was octogenarian P.R. Kyndiah as minister for DoNER representing Meghalaya during UPA-1. Bijoy Krishna Handique remained a cabinet minister for a few years before ill health compelled the senior Congressman to do with a minister of state portfolio. Paban Singh Ghatowar later replaced Handique as DoNER minister.