Find solution to insurgency before polls: Naga groups
GUWAHATI: Various groups and political parties in Nagaland have urged the Centre to postpone the upcoming assembly elections in the state till a final solution to the seven-decade-old Naga insurgency is found.
Groups like Nagaland Tribes Council and Central Nagaland Tribes Council have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past weeks with the request to defer the polls. The influential Gaon Burrah Federation of Nagaland, which comprises village chiefs, and Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation (ACAUT) have also written to Modi with the same demand.
The term of the present assembly, elected in 2013, expires on March 13 and elections are expected to be held next month, along with Meghalaya and Tripura. Chief minister TR Zeliang met Union home minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi on Wednesday and apprised him about the popular “Solution before Election” demand.
“The home minister assured Zeliang he would convene a meeting on the demand of the Naga people and convey the outcome of the meeting to the Nagaland government,” a release issued by the chief minister’s office said.
Zeliang’s Naga People’s Front (NPF) heads the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) coalition government in the state of which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also a part.
Last month, the 60-member state assembly passed a resolution urging New Delhi to “usher in an honourable and acceptable solution to the Naga political issue well before the assembly election”.
“We too support an early solution. The Centre has been apprised of the sentiment in Nagaland, and we hope a decision will be taken soon,” the chief of the state unit of the BJP Visasolie Lhoungu said.
The Centre had signed a framework agreement with National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) in 2015 on how to resolve the decades’ old demand for creating a Greater Nagalim comprising contiguous Naga-inhabited areas in neighbouring states.
The details of the agreement are yet to be made public. But with six more Naga groups joining the talks last October, there’s expectation that a ‘final solution’ would happen soon.