NPF-BJP divorce: More than meets the eye?

Our Correspondent
Kohima, July 22 (EMN): The public display of political canoodling between the Naga People’s Front (NPF) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Nagaland recently came to an abrupt halt with the NPF announcing of severing its ties with the latter on July 18 following a fallout resulting from a tussle for leadership between chief minister TR Zeliang and his predecessor Dr Shürhozelie Liezietsü.
The NPF has since taken a u-turn on its opinion on what Liezietsü, who is also the president of NPF, termed the BJP its “natural ally” less than a month ago, and has been sparing no callous adjectives while describing the BJP in its press releases. However, state BJP president Visasolie Lhoungu today said his party was yet to receive any official intimation from the NPF about the severance of ties between the two.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of an official function in Raj Bhavan Kohima, Lhoungu said the information was out in public domain as the media releases of the NPF were being circulated in the social media and have also appeared in the newspapers, but his office was not given any official information from the NPF.
When asked if he has communicated with his counterpart in Manipur about the political standing in Nagaland as there is also a coalition between the two parties in Manipur, Lhoungu said he was yet to do that because of the fact that the BJP Nagaland was yet to receive any such declaration in black and white.
However, he expressed that NPF severing its ties with BJP will not have much impact on the BJP.
The present DAN government, though led by NPF, will continue till the end of its tenure, he stated.
It was only on June 28 that the then chief minister Liezietsü had described the NPF party as “the natural ally of the BJP” during a consultative meeting with the party workers of NPF Arunachal Pradesh. He was reported to have claimed that the association of NPF with the BJP as early as 1977 and that the alliance was renewed in early 2003 when the then chairman of the NDA, George Fernandes, along with few other non-Congress parties in the state, formed the DAN (Democratic Alliance of Nagaland).