The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) on Monday said the BJP’s role in Naga political peace process is limited only to words and assurances.
In a statement, the Pradesh Congress recalled the BJP and its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections assured solution to the Naga political issue within 18 months of coming to power.
“The much acclaimed Naga Accord/Naga Framework Agreement signed on August 3, 2015 which Prime Minister Modi claimed to have solved the decades-old Naga problem forever and that too on foreign soil (Dubai), is yet to see the light of the day,” the NPCC stated.
It further pointed out that Nagaland governor P B Acharya in March 2018 proudly promised Naga political solution within six months. But, it has stretched into eight months without any signs of conclusion, it said.
The NPCC said the current peace process is a culmination of the Congress’s commitment to the people of Nagaland as former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in a Dimapur election rally in May 1991, two days before his tragic death in Sriperumbudur, offered talks with the Naga political groups without any pre-conditions. “This commitment was fulfilled by the then Prime Minister Narashima Rao who sent out various political emissaries in contacting leaders of Naga political groups that finally resulted in ceasefire being signed in July 1997 and beginning of peace talks that is continuing till today,” it added.
According to NPCC, when the Nagaland unit of BJP questions Congress’s contribution to the state and in the Naga political peace process, it only exposes their hollowness and bankruptcy of ideas to address issues faced by the state. The only achievement of BJP is to keep bluffing people and the nation, it stated.
“This was candidly admitted by their senior leader and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari that BJP indulged in making tall promises to win elections and when people remind them of promises, they just laugh and move on,” the NPCC claimed.
The Pradesh Congress further said all the regional parties in Nagaland have become the “B team” of BJP and have lost track of governance issues other than fooling the people with assurances of development and peace that is never forthcoming.
The NPCC reminded the state BJP that “words and assurances” are not achievements. The Congress also vowed to voice out issues of public importance while exposing the “BJP’s hollowness and cheap rhetoric manufactured to fool the people of Nagaland”.