Old wine in new bottle? Hope not
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: October 22, 2013 -

The churnings in the political cauldron that are taking place ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 have given the impressive of a biggest electoral fight among the political parties that the people would witness like never before in India.

Of all these churnings, one significant development that has come about is the joining hands together by 10 regional political parties in the North East region and announcing formation of a new political front christened as ''North East Regional Political front (NERPF) on October 20 with the stated objective of working together for safeguarding "territorial, cultural, social, political and economic rights of the people of the region and to continuously strive to protect the distinctive identifies of the ethnic tribes and of all the people of the region."

The newly floated political front having four representatives from each of constituent parties has also adopted 17 different resolutions, including a resolution seeking a fresh look into the issue of Centre-State relations in the true spirit of federalism.

It has demanded a comprehensive amendment of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution with devolution of powers to States in every matter, except those pertaining to defence, external relations, currency and external trade. Furthermore, the newly floated front has demanded scrapping of the concurrent list and transfer of all the subjects in it to the State list.

Even though it would be too early to say anything on how the newly floated common political platform of the regional political parties from one of the most neglected regions of the country would be able to play its role in the electoral politics of India, such unity and solidarity over the common issues afflicting the region is a long overdue one.

Of course, as early as 2009, NCP leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma had tried his level best to bring together the regional parties of the Northeast region under a common front, then known under the name of North-East People's Front.

With a total strength of 25 MPs in the Lok Sabha from the region, Sangma knew that the regional parties could play a major role in tilting political equation against other major National parties not only in the region but also at the National level provided they joined and fought the Parliamentary elections together.

Sangma was so convincing that he even managed to bring together at least 13 non-Congress parties to join hands for the said purpose.

But he was hasty enough in trying to project the common front as the so-called ''Third Front", even before testing the muddy water of Indian electoral politics, and the rest of the story, as they say, is history today.

So, we just hope that the newly floated North East Regional Political Front (NERPF) does not turn out to just old win in a new bottle.

With the destiny of the Northeast region tied together, it would be a futile exercise on the part of the regional parties not to learn lesson from the past and be condemned to repeat the same mistake, again.