Naga People’s Front (NPF) president Dr Shürhozelie Liezietsu on Monday, barely a week to go before Nagaland goes to the polls, called upon the Naga people to choose between preserving ‘our identity’ and money.
“We should not let money power and false promises overpower our faith and our identity of being Nagas,” the NPF president said while addressing an NPF Zunheboto division election rally.
Addressing a gathering of party workers and well wishers, he reminded the people that in 2018 election, money will attack the Naga voters on one side whereas, the other side, the NBCC is propagating a clean election.
He said NDPP-BJP alliance had nothing to woo the Naga voters with but only with the money and called upon the people to take the right decision.
“In Nagaland, the churches have seen the dangers posed by fringe elements to the Naga society and are taking remedial measures to counter these dangers,” Liezietsu said and called upon the general public to abide by the directions and requests of the Nagaland Baptist Church Council.
Liezietsu stated that the 2018 general election may not be an election between the different political parties, but it could be “between our faith, our identity and forces from outside.”
However, the NPF president asserted that NPF alone would secure absolute majority in this election and that the party would protect the Naga people and their ways of life.
Reminding the gathering, he said the regional party NPF which was formed in the year 1964 is “not only a political party but it represents the identity of the Naga people, so why give our future to other political parties which will be a destructive to our identity and the society.”
Liezietsu also said the newly-floated NDPP, which is yet to be recognized by the Election Commission of India, is like newly-settled village or school that is not recognized by the government, is “married to BJP and trying to give birth the BJP child in Naga soil.”
The NPF had refused seat sharing policy with the BJP and thus the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) came forward offering the BJP 20 seats in a House of 60, which is merely an attempt to hold power at the cost of the Naga people, he added.
The NDPP partnering with the BJP is helping the latter set its root into our land to persecute the Naga people, he iterated.
“The NPF belongs to Nagas, the party belongs to every Naga,” Liezietsu said and asked the Naga people whether “we should choose and be in our own Naga party or someone else’s party.”