GUWAHATI: A moribund Congress in Nagaland is relieved as the state’s principal opposition party, Naga People’s Front (NPF), has decided not to field a candidate in the state’s lone Parliamentary seat.
The state braces for a straight contest between Tokheho Yepthomi of ruling People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA) and KL Chishi of the Congress. Yepthomi is the consensus candidate of the PDA which is made up of BJP, Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) and Janata Dal (United). The NDPP is a major PDA constituent.
“I believe our chances have brightened as the NPF opted out of the poll race,” Congress’s Nagaland unit president K Therie told this newspaper on Sunday.
He said the Congress was looking for support from non-PDA political parties.
“I am in negotiations with the like-minded parties. I hope we will be able to get together. I had earlier written to NPF president (Shurhozelie Liezietsu) seeking the party’s support. I had a discussion with him on the issue yesterday (Saturday). The outcome will, possibly, be known tomorrow or the day after,” Therie said.
NPF publicity secretary Atou Liezietsu said the party’s sole intention is to defeat the PDA candidate.
“It’s not that we don’t have a potential candidate. We opted out of the race to ensure that anti-PDA votes don’t get split. Had we been in the poll fray, it would have helped the PDA candidate,” he reasoned out.
Asked if the NPF would hit campaign trail, he said, “We cannot share the dais with the Congress. We don’t mind campaigning but who we will campaign for because we don’t have a candidate,” he said.
He added that Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio of the NDPP was instigating the NPF to field candidate through his criticism of the party for not being in the poll fray. He feels that if the NPF is in the poll scene, it will help the PDA, Liezietsu pointed out.
The Congress, which ruled Nagaland for the most part since its statehood in 1963, has depleted considerably in the past two decades in the wake of the NPF’s emergence. The NPF had been in power in the state for three terms on the trot between 2003 and 2018.
Neiphiu Rio had served as the CM from 2003 to early 2014. He relinquished the CM’s chair ahead of last Parliamentary election and successfully contested it. His aim was to play a “bigger role” in Delhi. However, when he was denied a berth in Narendra Modi government, he returned to state politics and reclaimed the CM’s chair. But, the door was shut on him. Frustrated, he then made some futile attempts to dislodge the TR Zeliang government but his acts saw him getting increasingly cornered within the party which suspended him for “anti-party” activities. So, ahead of last year’s Nagaland elections, he defected to the newly-floated NDPP, believed to be his brainchild, and went on to form the PDA government.
Both Rio and Therie are former Congress ministers. The Congress’s boat started sinking from 2003 after the duo had walked out of the then SC Jamir government to be with the NPF. For Therie, life has come a full circle, for he is trying to revive a party (Congress) that depleted largely due to his – and that of Rio’s – desertion 15 years ago.