Nagaland Tribes Action Committee (NTAC) had hit out at T.R.Zeliang for his statement made at the NPF campaign in Manipur adding it was not surprised at the author of the inequitable who being hard pressed had trivialised people’s demand for him to step down on moral ground.
NTAC through its media cell hit out at T.R. Zeliang for stating in his campaign speech, that he was forced to step down just because he belonged to a minority tribe. It said that after being unable to assimilate his own scheming any further, the “dislodged chief minister” spewed it out at Tamenglong on February 28 and in the process “letting the cat out of the bag” at how he had been audaciously employing all possible means to cling to the chair. Ultimately, when all these failed, NTAC said T.R. Zeliang had to step down but then passed the buck on tribal organisations on the same line which his supporters have been second fiddling.
NTAC reminded T.R.Zeliang that he was asked to step down by the people of Nagaland to own moral responsibility for the loss of lives after declaration of ULB elections under his government. NTAC said while vowing to hold ULB elections, T.R.Zeliang on January 30,2017 warned apex tribal organisations who have called for state-wide bandh that his government will conduct polls at any cost and under any circumstances and warned that security personnel would take action on the spot at those attempting to disturb the polling on February 1,2017.
It was because of “such distasteful action” that the people of Nagaland deemed as the “high command” and whose “voices are supreme in democracy”, rejected T.R.Zeliang but not because he hailed form a minority tribe, said NTAC. NTAC reiterated, there is no different categorisation among all recognised tribes of Nagaland as T.R. Zeliang “might in his wildest imaginations naively think” which even the “sympathetic nods” of people of Manipur, cannot change this fact in Nagaland. NTAC hit out saying such absurdity cannot earn respect but only by valuing life and acceptable to the people. Therefore, said NTAC, a “renegade-like legislator deposed as chief minister” under prevailing circumstances cannot be repentant but conclude that “the grapes are sour after all.”
However, NTAC said the most unfortunate aspect for Zeliang was not his ousting from a position but by his “own incorrect utterance of a self-demeaning statement” which damaged his esteem and unbecoming of a statesman, especially one who had been a chief minister.
Flabbergasted: NTAC said it was “flabbergasted by the blabbermouth statements” by T.R.Zeliang and minister education Yitachu in Manipur that the Centre offered central forces to contain the protestors in Nagaland to hold on to power.
NTAC disclosed that the actual content of the reply from the Centre to T.R. Zeliang’s official request to the union home minister on February 9,2017 (and a copy of which was available with NTAC) portrayed a “disappointingly opposite story”. According to NTAC, the Centre indicated its total disinclination to interfere in the state which had also been articulated by MoS home Kiren Rijiju to NDTV that the ongoing movement in Nagaland was “an internal issue” and ruled out any intervention since law and order was a state subject.
NTAC reiterated that all the hardships that had happened to the people of Nagaland would not have taken place had T.R. Zeliang “in the first place, listened to the voice of the people and stepped down gracefully.”
Hitting out, NTAC said T.R. Zeliang’s stand that he stepped down for the sake of peace and harmony in the state was a “red-herring” which has no takers.
Moreover, NTAC held minister School Education Yitachu responsible for giving “wrong legal advice” and being vociferously advocating the basis over which the government went ahead with the ULB elections against the wishes of the people. Further, it said the government under T.R. Zeliang had also miserably failed in its role and responsibility of fulfilling the constitutional obligation vis-à-vis safeguarding Article 371A.
NTAC hit out at T.R. Zeliang and Yitachu saying that their participation in someone else’s state election campaign and engaging in “dishonest rhetoric on the sequence of events in one’s own state” that were responsible for the recent crisis of failure were idiotic and irrelevant. Thus, statements of T.R. Zeliang and Yitachu were only “speechifying frustration and negative mind-frame of petrified legislators” added NTAC.