On the first day of the ongoing monsoon session of the 12th Nagaland Legislative Assembly, on Tuesday, two developments revealed the inherent predicament within the present NPF-led DAN III coalition comprising of all 60 legislators from all state political parties including independents.
On the eve of the opening 9th session of the 12th NLA, the two developments – All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of north eastern states V. Narayanasamy issued a three-line whip on the eight suspended Congress legislators and on the directive of state BJP, all the four legislators walked out on the first day during the election for the deputy speaker.
The AICC had rejected the reply from the suspended legislators to its show cause notice. V.Narayanasamy , signing on behalf of the AICC as the official in-charge of NE, had rejected the reply and issued a clause-wise response to the suspended Congress legislators . The AICC claimed, that the decision to join the DAN government under T.R.Zeliang was in dispute within the NPCC executive on the issue of being in the same boat with the BJP. He averred that the eight legislators went ahead against the wishes and directives of the high command and then purportedly still reaffirming their loyalty to the party principles and ideology.
The 17-point clause wise reply to the eight suspended Congress legislators was a built up to the “three-line whip”. The issuance of the whip on the suspended legislators has not been officially received by them, said one who spoke on condition of anonymity to Nagaland Post.
Defying the whip attracts the disqualification process under the Tenth Schedule of the constitution.
The eight have been asked to: highlight various irregularities, rampant corruption, backdoor appointments and debated on the failure of the government on all fronts and move policy and token cut motions and vote for the cut motion.
When asked for comment, some of the suspended Congress legislators pointed out that the three-line whip issued by the AICC was “technically flawed”. They said it could not be a whip but only a directive since a whip is issued by the designated chief whip of the party legislature.
Secondly, it was pointed out that since they have been suspended from the party, the directive was technically flawed because their membership has not been restored.
Illustrating the point, they said if a government officer was suspended, the government cannot ask him to perform a duty unless the suspension was revoked.