Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, JUNE 28
The Nagaland Unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday felicitated legislators of the saffron party from the Northeastern states as well as NDA leaders/MPs at Niathu Resort, Dimapur today.
Despite invitations to BJP legislators and NDA MPs from the Northeast, Saturday’s event was attended only by the 11 BJP legislators of Arunachal Pradesh, the lone BJP representative to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly Paiwang Konyak, Lok Sabha MP from Nagaland Neiphiu Rio and the three “former” NCP legislators who had recently “merged” with the BJP.
According to the president of Nagaland BJP Unit, Dr M Chuba Ao, the felicitation event was also meant to serve the parallel purpose of exchanging ideas between the two neighbouring states, especially in the context of the Naga political issue and its potential repercussions across the Northeast states. By simply coming together, he reasoned, any “misunderstandings” between the two states could be discussed and resolved.
This sentiment was also echoed by Lok Sabha MP from Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio. “We want the Northeast states to understand the Naga political issue,” he said by way of opening his address.
“I want the BJP, particularly of the Northeast states, to carry this message that Nagas are not bad people. We are good people. It is just that we have been displaced,” Rio told the delegation from Arunachal Pradesh as well as central BJP leaders.
There was to be no sugarcoating from the three-time CM of Nagaland. “Our neighbors, they misunderstand us,” he said while explaining that “the seeds of today’s quarrel” was sown somewhere in the 1960s. The “dispute and quarrel”, Rio said, was an “inherited legacy.”
He further reasoned that the Northeast have come of age to learn to co-exist. “Unless we learn to understand each other, unless the Naga political issue is resolved, there cannot be peace here among us.
“Whether it is good or bad, take it or leave it, a decision has to come. There has to be a solution,” Rio said. We want our neighbors to understand why Nagas are so problematic. It is unfortunate because of the history, the division but whether good or bad it has to be resolved, he said.
Rio also took the time to remind the BJP leaders as to how the NPF had managed to keep the former’s arch bitter rival Congress out of power in Nagaland for more than a decade. “I only want the BJP to respect the minority, backward and the small states because this Indian Union is a vast country with its different ethnic groups having different diversities,” he said.
The Arunachal Pradesh BJP delegation was led by its president Tai Tagak while the BJP central leaders were represented by PB Acharya and Tapir Gao.
