Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) president K. Therie on Friday slammed the NPF Central Executive Council for having “no guts” to directly point out at its ally, the BJP party, against ban on cow slaughter. Addressing media persons here, Therie said CEC had “no guts to even name beef or cow, but mentioned dietary restriction” not to displease the BJP government.
He reminded that one of the core issue, when Naga hills submitted a memorandum to India in 1929, was based on differences in religion, culture and custom and food habits.
Therie also reminded that Meghalaya had boldly passed a bill in the Assembly against the ban on slaughter, while Mizoram and Kerela government had openly criticized the ban. However, he said, Nagaland being a Christian state, the NPF government was scared to go against its ally to protect the culture, custom and food habits. To this, Therie said Nagas should discard them (NPF) from rather than giving the responsibility to represent the people of Nagaland.
Reacting to the statement of the chief minister that “Congress era is gone”, Therei said it was too early to speak as Congress was the only opposition party against all the BJP political wings in the state. Rather, Therie said NPF was heading for “heavy crash” as it was divided into three parts– BJP, NPF and DPP. He said “simple political mathematics calculation says that when there is division, people would favour Congress in the coming election.” He said Congress was confident that people were determined for change in the state, saying NPF has destroyed the state for decades.
He also asserted that Congress was strongly opposed to setting up of advisory committees to man the local bodies as assured by chief minister. He said NPF government had early appointed advisory committees, but had done nothing but allegedly looted the tax and Central fund for urban development.
When asked about CM’s statement on re-writing the whole of Nagaland municipal Act, Therie said the act may be amended, added and deleted but can’t be discarded.
On queries about the new political party (Nagaland Congress), Therie said any political party formed should be based on ideology, principle and objectives. He said it was time for Nagas to identify issues and manifestos, not candidates or money.
On Pillai’s case, he said once the party gets hold of enough information/evidence, it would write to the Centre for necessary action.