Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) has decided to field its candidate in the forthcoming Lok Sabha Election.
Stating this in a release, NPCC president K Therie said this was to show that the people of Nagaland stood for freedom of religion and would not compromise inherent freedom of religion, culture and social practices, besides to endeavour to solve the Naga political problem through peaceful and constitutional means. Asserting that Hindutva was the root cause of the noble political movement of Nagas, he explained that Jawaharlal Nehru provided Article 371(A) safeguarding the religion, culture and social practices of Nagaland for this reason.
He said NPCC appreciated the difficulties and realities of negotiation, but felt that 21 years of negotiations without solution was unreasonable. He regretted that though regional parties were given enough opportunities in the last 15 years, they were hardly given one or two minutes to speak in Parliament and failed to garner support, being single among 545 MPs.
According to Therie, the Naga political issue needed the platform of a big political party in Parliament. And although BJP had big numbers in the present Parliament, he alleged that it had miserably failed to address the issue.
The NPCC chief recalled that the Framework Agreement was signed on August 3, 2015 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced at Dubai that the Naga issue had been solved. However, he lamented that negotiation had continued till date without solution, adding today, the Centre blamed three neighbouring States that were ruled by BJP for the delay in solution. He said Congress from the beginning never trusted BJP to resolve the issue as it was guided by RSS, which propagated the idea of a Hindu nation through Hindutva. He claimed that RSS had been openly advocating against any special provisions in the constitution.
Terming Centre’s interlocutor RN Ravi’s recent statement threatening militants to “die fighting or surrender” and that there would be no more talks with militants from the Northeast as shocking, Therie asserted that without solution he had no moral right to threaten and provoke the region.
“One must understand there are armless faithful Indian citizens living in the Northeast wanting peaceful solutions,” he stressed.
Calling upon the electorate to give a chance to Nagaland Congress to participate in the Congress and UPA parliamentary committees and in Parliament, he also guaranteed freedom of religion and assurance to sort out the political issue.
He appealed to all like-minded political parties and valuable voters for support.