Nagaland: BJP-NDPP failed to deliver basic amenities: Tharoor

Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor lamented that the basic issue of welfare of the community was not being addressed by the BJP-led government at the Centre and the NDPP-led coalition government in Nagaland.
Addressing a public meeting here at Congress Bhavan on Wednesday, Tharoor accused the BJP-NDPP government of having failed to deliver the basic amenitieslike water, electricity, health and roads in a state which had attained statehood 60 years back.
He said Nagas deserve better than such kind of deception, corruption, dishonesty and inefficiency.
Tharoor also lamented that Nagaland was the only State in the country that did not have a single medical college as people were only served empty promises. He called for prioritising health and education for overall social welfare.
He said the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the serious gaps in public healthcare system and wondered how long the State government would take to wake up and see how little had been achieved in public healthcare.
Tharoor, who is campaigner for Congress, reminded the gathering that the promise of setting up Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) in the State had disappeared in thin air with no sign of construction nor appointment of any faculty.
He further alleged that even though money had been allotted and spent, the high court building was nowhere near completion.
The Congress leader urged the people to stand up and demand answers from the government where the money had gone and make the people responsible accountable for the misappropriation.
He also expressed eagerness to see the end of Naga insurgency and recalled how then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had announced in 1959 the decision to form a State, which finally became a reality in 1963, with an additional safeguard by inserting Article 371(A) in the constitution gave special rights to Naga people.
He asked BJP to clarify whether it will abolish Article 371(A) and strip Nagas of Nagaland of their special privileges, similar to the way it had abolished Article 370 from Jammu &Kashmir, in view of his concern against the monolithic idea of India.
Tharoor also rejected Union Minister of State for Electronics, Information Technology, Skill Development & Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s assertion that Indian constitution was BJP’s ideology. Instead, he accused BJP of aggressively pursuing Hindutva politics.
Tharoor also mentioned that Nagaland with 97% non-Hindus (Christians) should be cautious about BJP. He urged the people not to allow BJP to succeed in changing the State’s unique cultural identity.
He alleged that a series of attacks on minorities across the country under BJP rule, should make people realise the reality and not to believe what BJP promises as it always conducted itself exactly in the opposite manner.
He accused the BJP of fooling the Nagas by saying one thing in Nagaland and another thing in other parts of the country. “The BJP should not be allowed to conceal its basic orientation, that is belief in ‘one nation, one religion, one language, one culture and one leader’,” he said
Noting that Nagaland would be celebrating 60 years of its formation soon, the Congress leader lamented that it had still not realised its full potential in terms of human resource and infrastructure development and partly held insurgency problem responsible for this.
He recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in 2015 announced that the Naga political issue had been resolved, though the reality was totally different. Under Modi, he said the Naga accord instead turned into a Framework Agreement and though talks had officially concluded in 2019, there was still no sign of the solution now.
He commented that if a solution could be reached on Naga political issue, then development would pick up pace.
Chief operations officer of All India Professionals’ Congress Aalim Javeri also delivered a brief speech on the occasion.