Speaker dismisses Guv branding of state politicians as corrupt

NEPS KOHIMA, December 12 Speaker for Nagaland Legislative Assembly Chotisuh Sazo dismissed the wild allegation of the State Governor PB Acharya during a programme in Dimapur recently that the state politicians had indulged in “rampant corruption.” Talking to NEPS here Friday, the Speaker said he could not buy the Governor’s idea of branding all the state politicians as “indulging in rampant corruption.” “Such wild allegation by head of the state is unacceptable and uncalled for,” he said adding that “no sensible person will believe on such rampant and wild allegation.” It was more unbecoming on the part of the Governor making such sweeping branding of “Naga people” as greedy for “easy money” emboldening “rulers” to indulge in corrupt activities, Sazo asserted. The Speaker expressed his surprise on the repeated reactions on the state’s deficit of Rs 1234 crore and stated that the whole state’s budget was not even 2G Scams of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. What about the Rs 70000 crore scams of 2010 Commonwealth Games or Adarsh Housing Society Scams or Coal Mining Scams and numerous scandals and scams in the country, he asked and disclosed that amongst of most corrupt states in the country, Nagaland was not even figured at all. Stating that “Governor should not brand all Nagas as greedy for money or all politicians are corrupt,” Sazo revealed that the most corrupt states in India were Rajasthan, Odisha, Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Haryana, Gujarat, Bihar, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, etc. as per the survey conducted in 2012. He questioned as how “Nagaland people and politicians have been branded as greedy for money and corrupt ones respectively by our own Governor.” “Such wild allegation will be doing more harm than good, besides sending negative message to the rest of the country.” “Even if the politicians wanted to indulge in corrupt activities, where was the scope when they were running the state affairs from hand to mouth without any internal resources for generation?,” he questioned. “Over 60 per cent of our budget goes to salaries of the employees,” he disclosed and added that they hardly had anything for development and the “question of indulging in rampant corruption is something cannot be imagined as alleged by our Governor.”