It is exactly one year since the Congress MLAs were inducted into Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang’s ministry and in its 6th month after the eight Congress MLAs merged with the ruling NPF, all done in the name of “Naga solution”, but the DAN coalition finally shirked the responsibility of uniting the Naga nationalist groups and appealed to the Forum for Naga reconciliation (FNR) to do their chores. Earlier in 2015, the Chief Minister had mooted an “all party” government which could not materialise, and so had to settle for an opposition-less government that became a reality in November 2015. Their reason for such an arrangement was that the DAN government’s top most agenda was to bring an early solution to the Indo-Naga problem.
The extent the Speaker of the house went to cite an order of the Gauhati High Court pertaining to the three NCP MLAs as the locus-standi for merging the eight Congress MLAs initially must have evoked many a minds for the genuineness of the DAN coalition determined to work for an early solution. Their recent appeal to FNR to play a bigger role have brought down the coalition’s credibility to one of its lowest in the last one year.
The criticism by the NPCC president comparing the 60 MLAs akin to 60 blind men is rightfully stated. The coalition stepped into the centre stage with their big “confident slogans” but now quite doubtful themselves and have also created doubts of their intentions in the first place, and in the minds of the people.
The elected members are the rightful representatives of the people and they have been given authority by the people to lead them, make laws and guide them in the right path. So when the entire elected representatives have come together, as stated by them, then what is ailing in this ‘unity’. Is there a deadlock that they now require the services of an almost forgotten organisation by them, the FNR? Is their unity not in letter and in spirit? Is the true voice of democracy being subdued for the sake of ‘Naga Solution’ but is finally becoming little too much to carry? These are some speculations that the people will have hereafter.
The DAN coalition’s resolution came only after a few days after FNR was in the news where some organisations had unfairly labelled FNR as a cause legitimising all the factions and the resultant increase in taxes. Eastern Mirror carried an editorial to retract the statement. What all our civil bodies and our leaders are unable to accept the fact is that organisations like the FNR are just the initiators and at times the mediators. FNR do not have the mandate of the people to make decisions. The mandate of the people in the state of Nagaland is with the sixty members of the Legislative Assembly.
At such a crucial stage since signing of the Framework Agreement, when the political talks are still on, the DAN coalition that portrayed that all the sixty MLAs have come together for the sake of Naga solution suddenly avoiding the responsibility of talking to the Naga National Groups is distressing indeed.