Rio-led PDA to face dual test today

Kohima Bureau Kohima, March 12 (EMN): The newly mandated People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA) government led by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio will face two tests on Tuesday by way of a trust vote and election of a new speaker for the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA). With 34 members in the house of 60 the PDA is confident about sailing through the tests, a general secretary of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) has said. The NDPP has 18 MLAs in the coalition: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has 12, the National People’s Party (NPP) two, one from the Janata Dal (United), and an independent. Interestingly, the opposition Naga People’s Front (NPF) led by former chief minister TR Zeliang which has 26 MLAs, purportedly submitted 27 names to the NLA on Monday. The assembly secretariat was said to have written back that one of the names could not be allowed. Apparently the party was still counting the extra seat of 6th Tening assembly constituency as having won by its candidate Namduadi Rangkau Zeliang despite the ruling by the Election Commission of India (EC) declaring NDPP candidate Namri Nchang the winner after recounting the votes was necessitated due to tabulation error. Namduadi Rangkau Zeliang, a nephew of the former chief minister, was declared the winner initially on March 3 but a ‘clerical error’ in the tabulation was said to have been detected later on the same day by the returning officer. Subsequently a review was conducted. The EC had the directed cancellation of the declaration of wrong results issued in favour of Namduadi Rangkau Zeliang. After reviewing the tabulation, Nchang was found to have polled 168 votes more than the NPF candidate and was declared winner on March 4. TR Zeliang had, on the day he resigned from the chair, said that the NPF had taken the matter to court challenging the 'reversal' of result. He maintained that until the court’s verdict, the party would count its elected members to 27. Yhoshü and Aier in race for NLA speaker The PDA has proposed the name of three-time legislator Vikho-o Yhoshü of the NDPP to the post of speaker while the opposition NPF has fielded former speaker Dr. Imtiwapang Aier. An officer of the NLA confirmed that Yhoshü and Aier had filed their nomination papers on Monday. The election would held during the first session of the new assembly on Tuesday before Rio seeks the vote of confidence in the house. The election will be through secret ballot.