Dimapur, April 20 (EMN): The Naga People’s Front (NPF) has termed it ‘most unfortunate’ that its attempt to point out anomalies in Nagaland's Rural Development department ‘is threatening to snowball into a major controversy with tribal and clan organisations getting involved, sidelining the original issue.’
A press release from the party on Friday stated that the ‘silence of the party’ appears to have been misconstrued. “... the matter has now been taken into a startlingly different direction: the leader of opposition, Mr TR Zeliang, is now being targeted!” it stated.
According to the party, this was ‘a calamitous development.’ What is the meaning of democracy, it wondered, when the opposition is deterred, discouraged, and disparaged from pointing out the anomalies and discrepancies in governance?
“The NPF party has been accused of making a personal issue out of the matter. However, the facts and figures furnished by the party vis-à-vis allocation of funds to one particular village have not been repudiated, and those accusing the party of harbouring a personal vendetta have now singled out the leader of opposition!”
It stated that the party had nothing against any ‘individual government official’. “The officer identified in the earlier revelation is the Administrative Head of Department and had there been any other officer as the AHoD, that official too, would have been identified by name, especially so if he or she happened to reside in the village which was allotted the abnormal amount,” it stated.
Stating that it had raised the issue ‘for the general good of the entire state,’ the organisation appealed to “all concerned not to blow the issue out of proportion, and also urges the department to rectify the anomaly in fund allocation for the betterment of all Nagas.”
