'NPF open to a total reconciliation process'

Kohima, 16th July, 2017

The NPF Party is open to a total reconciliation process and therefore, would not like to place in the public domain the internal matters of the party.

However, certain facts need to be placed on record for the people to know since the issue has surfaced in the public domain through certain press releases.

In the present scenario, the Leader of the House is Dr.Shürhozelie by virtue of being the Chief Minister and there is no vacancy for the Chief Minister’s post. There is no Leader of Opposition because, it is an opposition-less Government. Even if there is an Opposition party in the Assembly, if the number of MLAs is less than 1/6 of the total number of MLAs, one cannot be termed as a Leader of Opposition. That is why in the 12th House with 8 Congress opposition MLAs, their Legislature Party Leader could not be termed as Leader of Opposition and was not accorded any official status, but only referred to as Congress Legislature Party leader.

It is unfortunate that the issue which could be resolved in the party which is purely an NPF internal party problem has now been dragged to the Governor’s office and Speaker’s office. Both Dr. Shürhozelie Liezietsu and Shri T.R. Zeliang are members of NPF and their differences should be decided in the party forum first.

Human memory cannot be that short: Dr. Shürhozelie was forced to take over the CM’s office. On 26-05-2017 the DAN Legislators Meeting unanimously endorsed the view that Dr. Shürhozelie, Hon’ble Chief Minister should become a Member of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly and work together as a solid team to facilitate the same. Further, the DAN Legislators appealed to the Election Commission of India to conduct the bye-election for the 10 Northern Angami-I A/C at the earliest.

The fact that Shri T.R. Zeliang cannot move a no-confidence motion is simply because he belongs to the party which, the Hon’ble Chief Minister Dr. Shürhozelie heads, that is, the NPF Party. Therefore, Constitutionally and legally Dr. Shürhozelie still enjoys absolute majority in the House, because, NPF alone commands 47 members in the House of 60.

The confidence motion would put the NPF MLAs where they could be disqualified if they voted against the Party Whip. The MLAs are being misguided to say that the Speaker’s office will not disqualify them. However, the Court is at our door-step and their disqualification will become imminent if the matter is taken to Court because the Constitution and the law of the land is supreme.

The reconciliation process should not be treated as one’s weakness. The people desire for peace, development and progress. The stability of the DAN Government is in the total interest of the people of the State. Let us not go against the wishes of the people and try to resort to unconstitutional means, but settle differences in party forum through reconciliation. We should carry forward the constitutional obligations mandated by the people to the DAN coalition.

( YITACHU )
Nagaland Government Spokesperson