Our Correspondent
Kohima, August 14 (EMN): The four-day sit-in protest by Naga People’s Front (NPF) youth wing outside the Raj Bhavan, Kohima, demanding the ouster of Governor PB Acharya for allegedly violating the constitution of India by dismissing NPF president and former chief minister Dr Shürhozelie Liezietsu’s government and installing TR Zeliang’s in July, ended this evening.
Addressing the rallyists, MLA Y Vikheho Swu while stating that this was the fourth time the DAN-III ministry was under political instability, bluntly blamed the ongoing crisis on chief minister TR Zeliang, former chief minister and Lok Sabha MP Neiphiu Rio, Governor PB Acharya and Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) speaker Dr. Imtiwapang Aier.
Swu stated that the present crisis was an outcome of Zeliang playing the ‘game of highest political betrayal’. He wondered how Zeliang, after committing a betrayal of such level, will be leading the Naga people.
Secondly, he said he wondered what game Rio was playing. He reminded that Rio had, in 2014, insisted to go to Delhi (Lok Sabha) and work for the Naga people. He said Rio, after failing to get a berth in the central ministry, had tried to manipulate the politics in the state by first attempting to make Kaito Aye the chief minister, then said he would make Noke Wangnao take the chair, then TR Zeliang, while he quietly formed the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and now came to claim that he is the interim-president of NPF. “This is totally confusion. This is not a blame but a fact,” Swu stated.
Besides the governor, whom he said, is the constitutional head but failed to follow the constitution, was the NLA speaker. Swu said the MLAs had believed Aier had the capacity that was why he was put on the chair of justice. However, pointing that the recent events indicated otherwise, he blandly asserted that history will tell if the speaker is capable to take the Nagas forward or is a man who cannot exercise justice.
Swu also stated while a solution to the Naga political issue is expected soon, in the event no solution comes then the state will face 2018 assembly elections. In such an event, he said, it would do well for NPF partymen and women to revisit how the NPF party was formed.
Maintaining that NPF is the ‘true bus’ of the Naga people built in 1963, he said the party is the image and identity of the Nagas.
MLA and former NLA speaker Dr. Chotisuh Sazo shared a brief history of how the NPF party came about. He said NPF was the only party was registered with the ECI during the state’s first general election. Mentioning that though the nomenclature of the party had to be changed several times with the change in situation, Sazo stated that the symbol, the principles and the motto of the party have remained firm and strong.
On how governor Acharya installed Zeliang’s ministry, Sazo said he (Acharya) had unconstitutionally dismissed Dr. Shürhozelie Liezietsu and his government without listening to the council of ministers.
He further said that if the constitutional head of the state does not want to uphold the constitution of India, then the President of India should immediately recall Acharya as governor of Nagaland.
On the whip appointment, Sazo said the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution clearly states that the political party is to issue direction to the party functionaries including legislators, likewise, even the NPF constitution (chapter 5 clause 10) clearly mentioned that the president is authorised to promulgate ordinance to the party functionaries including the legislature wing. He however said the NLA speaker has violated all these rules and has recognised TR Zeliang’s self-appointment as whip and issued disqualification to the MLAs loyal to Liezietsu. He alleged that all those actions were made under the instruction of the governor Acharya.
Meanwhile, the NPF’s central office bearers (COB) held a meeting at the party office in Kohima today and arrived at the following conclusions: that as custodian of the Constitution of India in the state, the governor should have rectified the anomaly in the Assembly when the speaker ‘mysteriously accepted the Whip of expelled NPF member TR Zeliang’ as the official whip of the NPF party notwithstanding the fact that Kiyanilie Peseyie, who was appointed as the chief whip of the NPF party on November 14, 2014 and accepted by the Assembly Secretariat and continues to be the official chief whip of the NPF party.
“Non-action on the part of the Governor on this very count has made him equally responsible for the desecration of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India which clearly mentions that it is the political party which appoints the Chief Whip and by no other entity,” a press release from the NPF stated.
It also alleged that the NLA speaker “has demeaned, misused and abused the hallowed office of the Office and reduced the proceedings of the Assembly to a family affair when he inexplicably accepted both the Whip issued by the legal and authorized Chief Whip Kiyanilie Peseyie, and the Whip issued by his brother-in-law TR Zeliang”.
