GUWAHATI: Workers of the Naga People’s Front (NPF) in Nagaland on Friday ventilated their ire against the “partisan” governor PB Acharya and the BJP by organising a “beef festival”. To ridicule the governor further, the party invited him for dinner.
The festival was held at the NPF central office in the Nagaland capital of Kohima hours after chief minister TR Zeliang had proved his majority in the House by winning the floor test 47-11.
“…And so, to celebrate your latest political coup, and to mark the severance of ties with your political party the BJP, we are organising a beef feast (Your Excellency knows Nagas are voracious meat eaters) this evening and would like to take this opportunity to invite you to cancel some of your not-so-official engagements in political scheming and to come and join us for dinner at the NPF central office,” the NPF youth wing said in a statement.
Mocking at the governor further, the statement said, “Your Excellency has been terribly busy in the last few days breaking all democratic norms, playing politics and installing your party BJP-friendly government in the state. You have forgotten that the office of the governor should be apolitical, (but you) have been acting as the leader of the dissident NPF group...Your attempts to cloak your political decisions with some semblance of legality are transparent and the nakedness of it all is most repulsive and loathsome”.
The NPF youth wing was livid with Acharya for allegedly turning a blind eye “to a monumental travesty of democracy where a member (Zeliang) of the Assembly, who is expelled from the NPF for a period of six years, has been accepted as the chief whip of the very party from which he has been expelled”.
The governor first riled a section of NPF leaders and workers by directing former CM Shurhozelie Liezietsu to prove his majority in the House after Zeliang, armed with the written support of 34 of the 47 NPF legislators, had staked claim to power. The Liezietsu led NPF argued that it was a crisis within the party and would be resolved within the party. Therefore, the governor had no business to direct the floor test. Another reason it cited was that no no-confidence motion was moved against Liezietsu.
“…We are in a jubilant mood because not only has the NPF severed ties with the BJP for good, you yourself have shown how low you can stoop to achieve your political and religious agenda in the last few days,” the statement added.
The NPF severed its ties with the BJP within hours after the governor had dismissed Liezietsu and appointed Zeliang as the CM on July 17 when the former skipped the floor test along with MLAs loyal to him. That day, the BJP, which has four MLAs, had submitted a letter to the governor confirming support to the Zeliang-led NPF.