Tag: Nagaland elections

  • JD(U) frowns upon Nagaland unit’s support to newly-formed government

    By PTI

    PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) on Wednesday described as “high indiscipline” and “arbitrary” the support extended by its Nagaland unit to the newly formed government in that state where the NDPP-BJP alliance returned to power.

    According to a statement issued by the JD(U)’s national general secretary in charge for the North East, Afaq Ahmed Khan, the party’s Nagaland state committee has been, therefore, dissolved.

    The JD(U) had bagged one seat in the recently held elections to the 60-strong assembly of Nagaland, where the NPP-BJP alliance has been voted to power for the second time in a row.

    “The central party comes to know that Nagaland state president of our party (has) given a letter of support to the Chief Minister of Nagaland without consulting the central party, (which) is high indiscipline and arbitrary. So, the party has dissolved the Nagaland state committee with immediate effect,” the statement said.

    ALSO READ | Sharad Pawar clears proposal of NCP’s Nagaland MLAs to join Neiphiu Rio’s govt

    The JD(U)’s support is understood to have caused an embarrassment to Kumar, the supreme leader, who had snapped ties with the BJP last year, vowing to defeat it by uniting the opposition in the Lok Sabha polls next year.

    The NCP, NPP, Naga People’s Front, RPI (A), LJP (Ram Vilas), JD(U) and Independent MLAs extended support to the NDPP-BJP alliance for an opposition less government.

    NDPP president Neiphiu Rio took oath as the chief minister of Nagaland for the fifth term on Tuesday.

    PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) on Wednesday described as “high indiscipline” and “arbitrary” the support extended by its Nagaland unit to the newly formed government in that state where the NDPP-BJP alliance returned to power.

    According to a statement issued by the JD(U)’s national general secretary in charge for the North East, Afaq Ahmed Khan, the party’s Nagaland state committee has been, therefore, dissolved.

    The JD(U) had bagged one seat in the recently held elections to the 60-strong assembly of Nagaland, where the NPP-BJP alliance has been voted to power for the second time in a row.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    “The central party comes to know that Nagaland state president of our party (has) given a letter of support to the Chief Minister of Nagaland without consulting the central party, (which) is high indiscipline and arbitrary. So, the party has dissolved the Nagaland state committee with immediate effect,” the statement said.

    ALSO READ | Sharad Pawar clears proposal of NCP’s Nagaland MLAs to join Neiphiu Rio’s govt

    The JD(U)’s support is understood to have caused an embarrassment to Kumar, the supreme leader, who had snapped ties with the BJP last year, vowing to defeat it by uniting the opposition in the Lok Sabha polls next year.

    The NCP, NPP, Naga People’s Front, RPI (A), LJP (Ram Vilas), JD(U) and Independent MLAs extended support to the NDPP-BJP alliance for an opposition less government.

    NDPP president Neiphiu Rio took oath as the chief minister of Nagaland for the fifth term on Tuesday.

  • Congress has a mountain to climb ahead of elections in Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura

    Express News Service

    GUWAHATI: The upcoming elections in three states of the Northeast will be a battle for survival for the Congress which once ruled the entire region but has now gotten reduced to a shadow of its glorious past. The Congress’ slide in the Northeast began after the BJP’s emergence as a powerhouse in 2014.

    Simultaneous elections in the 60-member Assemblies of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura are expected in February.

    As it appears now, the Congress is not in the race to power in any of these states. It lacks leaders after many of them embraced the ruling party and other parties over a period of time.

    The Congress does not have a single MLA in Nagaland, just one in Tripura and one in Meghalaya.

    However, the five in Meghalaya were suspended earlier this year by the party’s central leadership for cosying up to the Conrad K Sangma government.

    The Congress had emerged as the single largest party in the 2018 Meghalaya Assembly elections but the National People’s Party (NPP)-led motley alliance formed the government. 

    In November last year, 12 of 17 Congress MLAs in Meghalaya, led by former Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, jumped ship to wear Trinamool Congress (TMC) colours. Their desertion relegated the grand old party to a more minor party and made the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC the state’s principal Opposition party overnight. TMC had no base in the state prior to that.

    Shillong MP H Pala is now Congress’s lone prominent face in the Christian-majority state. The Congress will not, perhaps, have a single MLA by the time it goes to elections as the five suspended legislators have more or less ditched the party and are likely to contest the polls on the tickets of other political parties.

    ALSO READ | Four Meghalaya MLAs join BJP ahead of upcoming elections

    In Tripura, Sudip Roy Barman is the Congress’ only MLA. He had won the last election on the BJP’s ticket and was inducted into the ministry but he resigned from the Assembly and the party in February this year after falling out with the then-Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. Later, he won a by-election, necessitated by his resignation.

    The Congress had failed to win a single seat in the 2018 Tripura elections which the BJP swept, decimating the Left. 

    The Congress had also drawn a blank in the Nagaland elections of 2018. The party, which had won many elections under former Chief Minister SC Jamir, is now virtually lost in the state which is ruled by a coalition of BJP, Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party, and Naga People’s Front. All MLAs in the state are from these three parties.

    The elections in the three states are around the corner but not many people are talking about the Congress.

    Party leaders, however, try to put up a brave face. “So what if we have one MLA? Atal Bihari Vajpayee had just two MPs but he went on to become the Prime Minister,” Tripura Congress chief Birajit Sinha told this newspaper.  “There is a lot going on in Tripura. People will vote us to power,” he said confidently, just days after seven Congress leaders, led by former state chief Pijush Kanti Biswas, joined the TMC in Tripura.

    The Congress in Nagaland sounded equally optimistic. “The Congress is the only alternative and people will vote for it. Not only has the Naga political issue remained unresolved, but the state, under the present government, is also facing bifurcation,” state Congress president K Therie said referring to the demand of an influential tribal organization for the creation of “Frontier Nagaland” state in eastern Nagaland.

    READ HERE | ‘Trinamool not a Bengali party, I work for all of India’: Mamata in poll-bound Meghalaya

    GUWAHATI: The upcoming elections in three states of the Northeast will be a battle for survival for the Congress which once ruled the entire region but has now gotten reduced to a shadow of its glorious past. The Congress’ slide in the Northeast began after the BJP’s emergence as a powerhouse in 2014.

    Simultaneous elections in the 60-member Assemblies of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura are expected in February.

    As it appears now, the Congress is not in the race to power in any of these states. It lacks leaders after many of them embraced the ruling party and other parties over a period of time.

    The Congress does not have a single MLA in Nagaland, just one in Tripura and one in Meghalaya.

    However, the five in Meghalaya were suspended earlier this year by the party’s central leadership for cosying up to the Conrad K Sangma government.

    The Congress had emerged as the single largest party in the 2018 Meghalaya Assembly elections but the National People’s Party (NPP)-led motley alliance formed the government. 

    In November last year, 12 of 17 Congress MLAs in Meghalaya, led by former Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, jumped ship to wear Trinamool Congress (TMC) colours. Their desertion relegated the grand old party to a more minor party and made the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC the state’s principal Opposition party overnight. TMC had no base in the state prior to that.

    Shillong MP H Pala is now Congress’s lone prominent face in the Christian-majority state. The Congress will not, perhaps, have a single MLA by the time it goes to elections as the five suspended legislators have more or less ditched the party and are likely to contest the polls on the tickets of other political parties.

    ALSO READ | Four Meghalaya MLAs join BJP ahead of upcoming elections

    In Tripura, Sudip Roy Barman is the Congress’ only MLA. He had won the last election on the BJP’s ticket and was inducted into the ministry but he resigned from the Assembly and the party in February this year after falling out with the then-Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. Later, he won a by-election, necessitated by his resignation.

    The Congress had failed to win a single seat in the 2018 Tripura elections which the BJP swept, decimating the Left. 

    The Congress had also drawn a blank in the Nagaland elections of 2018. The party, which had won many elections under former Chief Minister SC Jamir, is now virtually lost in the state which is ruled by a coalition of BJP, Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party, and Naga People’s Front. All MLAs in the state are from these three parties.

    The elections in the three states are around the corner but not many people are talking about the Congress.

    Party leaders, however, try to put up a brave face. “So what if we have one MLA? Atal Bihari Vajpayee had just two MPs but he went on to become the Prime Minister,” Tripura Congress chief Birajit Sinha told this newspaper.  “There is a lot going on in Tripura. People will vote us to power,” he said confidently, just days after seven Congress leaders, led by former state chief Pijush Kanti Biswas, joined the TMC in Tripura.

    The Congress in Nagaland sounded equally optimistic. “The Congress is the only alternative and people will vote for it. Not only has the Naga political issue remained unresolved, but the state, under the present government, is also facing bifurcation,” state Congress president K Therie said referring to the demand of an influential tribal organization for the creation of “Frontier Nagaland” state in eastern Nagaland.

    READ HERE | ‘Trinamool not a Bengali party, I work for all of India’: Mamata in poll-bound Meghalaya

  • Apex tribal organisation of eastern Nagaland decides to boycott State elections

    By Express News Service

    GUWAHATI: A tribal organisation in Nagaland has decided to boycott the upcoming state elections in protest against the Centre’s non-fulfillment of the demand for the creation of “Frontier Nagaland” state.The decision was made by the influential Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO), the apex tribal organisation of eastern Nagaland which has six of the state’s 16 districts.The political parties in the state have already stepped up their activities for the elections, due early next year.“Seven tribal bodies, talk team and frontal organisations…resolved not to participate in any election process of the state and the Centre until and unless the Frontier Nagaland state is created as demanded by the people of eastern Nagaland…” the ENPO said in a statement.Tuensang, Mon, Longleng, Kiphire, Noklak and Shamator are the six districts falling under eastern Nagaland which has altogether 20 of the state’s 60 Assembly seats. The tribal organisations demand that these six districts be carved out of Nagaland for the creation of Frontier Nagaland state.The entire region was once Tuensang when it was a part of North-East Frontier Agency. It was attached to the Naga Hills district in 1957 and when Nagaland attained statehood in 1963, it became a part of the state.The region has remained “underdeveloped” and “backward” for many years and the locals believe only the creation of a separate state could help ensure development here.The ENPO’s decision on boycotting the polls followed the August 9 “public rallies” organised across the six districts to press for the Frontier Nagaland state demand.In October last year, it had submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him, as well as Union Home Minister Amit Shah, to fulfil the demand early.Even as the ENPO is demanding the creation of a state within the state, a contentious demand of rebel group NSCN-IM is the creation of a unified Naga homeland by slicing off the Naga-inhabited areas of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh and integrating them with Nagaland. Each of these states has a sizeable Naga population.

    GUWAHATI: A tribal organisation in Nagaland has decided to boycott the upcoming state elections in protest against the Centre’s non-fulfillment of the demand for the creation of “Frontier Nagaland” state.
    The decision was made by the influential Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO), the apex tribal organisation of eastern Nagaland which has six of the state’s 16 districts.
    The political parties in the state have already stepped up their activities for the elections, due early next year.
    “Seven tribal bodies, talk team and frontal organisations…resolved not to participate in any election process of the state and the Centre until and unless the Frontier Nagaland state is created as demanded by the people of eastern Nagaland…” the ENPO said in a statement.
    Tuensang, Mon, Longleng, Kiphire, Noklak and Shamator are the six districts falling under eastern Nagaland which has altogether 20 of the state’s 60 Assembly seats. The tribal organisations demand that these six districts be carved out of Nagaland for the creation of Frontier Nagaland state.
    The entire region was once Tuensang when it was a part of North-East Frontier Agency. It was attached to the Naga Hills district in 1957 and when Nagaland attained statehood in 1963, it became a part of the state.
    The region has remained “underdeveloped” and “backward” for many years and the locals believe only the creation of a separate state could help ensure development here.
    The ENPO’s decision on boycotting the polls followed the August 9 “public rallies” organised across the six districts to press for the Frontier Nagaland state demand.
    In October last year, it had submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him, as well as Union Home Minister Amit Shah, to fulfil the demand early.
    Even as the ENPO is demanding the creation of a state within the state, a contentious demand of rebel group NSCN-IM is the creation of a unified Naga homeland by slicing off the Naga-inhabited areas of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh and integrating them with Nagaland. Each of these states has a sizeable Naga population.