GUWAHATI: Worried about being excommunicated by their tribes, 15 more candidates of Nagaland’s urban local bodies (ULBs) elections, being held after a gap of 10 years and scheduled for February 1, withdrew their nominations on Monday. With this, altogether 68 candidates have pulled out of the elections. Thirty seven candidates withdrew their nominations till January 12 and till then, the number of women candidates in the fray was 188. It was not known how many of the 31 candidates, who withdrew subsequently, were women.
There are now 467 candidates in the fray. Altogether 26 town and municipal councils are going to polls. Six others recorded nil nomination. Naga People’s Front (NPF) and BJP, which are constituents of ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland, had warned their candidates of disciplinary action in the event of withdrawal of nominations.
The BJP had, in fact, issued “whip” to them to not withdraw. Opposition Congress, which asked the government to postpone the polls, has not issued any such directive. It has fielded the lowest number of candidates. Some tribal oragnisations are boycotting the polls in protest against the State government’s decision to reserve 33% seats for women in the civic bodies. The Nagas are governed by customary laws, which are protected under Article 371(A) of the Constitution. The tribal organisations argue that quota will infringe upon the Article as there is nothing called reservation under the Naga customary laws.
Initially, their protest was against quota for women. But as the State government stuck to its guns by asserting that it would go ahead with the polls, the all-powerful tribal bodies decided to boycott the polls altogether. They directed the candidates to withdraw or face excommunication from their communities for upto 10 years.
In the wake of “threats and intimidations”, several candidates of different tribes and political parties have gone into hiding as they were being “hunted” by the apex organisation of their respective tribe. Nagaland has never elected a woman to its legislative Assembly since Statehood in 1963. The late Rano M Shaiza is its only woman MP, who was elected to Lok Sabha in 1977.