NPF (Rio) has welcomed the Election Commission of India’s letter to its rival NPF (Dr. Shürhozelie) asking it to furnish affidavits of support filed only by members of central executive council (CEC) and legislature wing.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, NPF (Rio) termed the ECI directive, dated November 25, as just and fair, while at the same time making NPF’s (Shürho) November 22 General Convention a futile exercise. It also said the ECI directive was a clear vindication of the stand it had maintained from day one.
Stating that in electoral politics nothing but majority prevailed, NPF (Rio) hoped that ECI would follow the legal procedure and precedence as was evidently expressed by the chief election commissioner at Hotel Japfü Tuesday.
“We welcome this statement and it has cemented our continuous stand that in the matter of party symbol dispute, the only criteria to determine the case is who commands the majority of the legislature wing and the party top executives. Moreover, the recognition expressed by the ECI that there are two factions in the NPF is legitimate and such recognition makes the Indian democracy stronger,” the statement stressed.
According to NPF (Rio), “This direction is a slap on the original and tall claims of our splinter group. Interestingly, the 25th Nov direction of ECI addressed to Dr Shürhozelie on “Dispute Case No. 6 of 2017” is without the prefix and suffix of President, but his name is simply followed by the words Naga People’s Front. The writing on the wall is big enough for all to see and the conjecture is obvious.”
NPF (Rio) said the direction to its rival group to submit its reply, latest by December 15, 2017, following submission of its own enclosures of September 20 General Convention, had rubbished the misinformation campaign of the “splinter group”.
“Nevertheless, the smear campaign carried out by our rival group against us by labelling our General Convention as illegal, unconstitutional, etc, etc, etc, stands dismissed and we hope that our rival group will do the needful as per the direction of ECI,” the party observed.
NPF (Rio) asserted that it was confident that ECI would settle the dispute without delay, even as it assured the people that the case would be decided as per the established precedence and merit, “where we enjoy the maximum number of CEC and MLAs”.