Dimapur, Feb. 10: The Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) on Friday dismissed home minister Y Patton’s claim that it had agreed to conduct of ULB elections with 33% reservation for women on January 30 last at Police Complex Chumukedima as “nothing less than his wild imagination”.
Addressing a press conference here at Dimapur, JCC convener, Supu Jamir told reporters that the JCC ‘in not point of time during the discussion’ on January 30 – in presence of NBCC members – had agreed to holding of ULB elections with 33% reservation.
He clarified that the JCC has simply sought 2 months time to “educate and dialogue with the different tribe bodies with regard to women reservation,” the outcome of which the committee was to ‘intimate’ to the state government.
“Thus the statement of Patton saying ‘the JCC also agreed to the holding of elections with reservation for women’ is nothing less than his wild imagination,” he said.
On the home minister’s statement that ‘even if the cabinet agreed to postpone (the ULB elections), it was further subject to the approval of the state election commission’, Supu said: “In this regard, the JCC makes it very clear that the chief minister had clearly stated that postponement of the ULB elections will be done with immediate effect”.
But with regard to the “duration”, he said, the home minister had announced in the presence of NBCC members that it would be subject to the decision of the cabinet and the state election commission.
While underscoring this distinction, Supu said that the home minister’s statement was nothing but a blatant lie.
Also, on the claim mad by Patton that the state government and the JCC did not discuss ‘as to whether the postponement shall cover the entire state or only those towns/municipalities where people were protesting against the ULB elections’, Supu said: “There was not even a whisper from the JCC with regard to partial postponement”.
The appeal from the JCC to the state government that day, he said, was to postpone the ULB elections “not in partial but in the entire state” of Nagaland. “And more so, the JCC sat with the chief minister and the home minister for almost 3 hours that day. Therefore, the home minister’s claim that there was shortage of time is also a blatant lie.”
The home minister, in his statement, had also addressed “non-stakeholders not to mislead or misinform”. To this, the JCC pointed out that it was endorsed by the apex Naga tribe hohos during the mass public rally at Dimapur on January23 last. “The JCC would like to question the home minister as to who are those non-stakeholders.”
The JCC has also reiterated that the January30 agreement ‘stands nullified and cancelled’ since the state government had violated it resulting in the death of 3 persons and several grievous injuries.
“The NTAC and the JCC on February 10 made it clear to the governor of Nagaland that if the state government still reiterates the said agreement, then the same can be discussed only if the state government brings back those deceased killed by the IRB jawans on January 31,” Supu said.
