Rank political opportunism is not an exception in Nagaland but a rule in evolutionary politics that has created new alliances and political permutations. Nagaland politics has shown a high degree of political evolution away from the basic ideal of Naga nationalism,that had got embedded willy nilly into the system. It happened in 2015, when eight Congress opposition members, embraced the ruling DAN-III coalition where BJP was one of the main constituents. State politics achieved another dubious distinction when Congress became partner in the same coalition with the BJP. The Congress high command recoiled with shock. The conflicting ideology between pluralism and communalism, between Congress and BJP, was discarded for power. Adding another dubiousity and in a blatant act of ignominy, Congress, the mortal enemy of BJP, \u2018merged\u2019 with the NPF hardly six months later, to hammer the last nail in the coffin of liberal pluralism. The Congress in Nagaland thus created a record of sorts when it evolved into NPF and a partner of BJP through the back door. It was a critical period for the NPF at a time when the party was factionalised with T.R. Zeliang and Dr. Sh\u00fcrhozelie Liezietsu (NPF president and self proclaimed critic of BJP\u2019s communal politics) on one side and on the other side, Lok Sabha MP Neiphiu Rio. Six years later, the same card was played when the opposition NPF in July 2021 joined the ruling Progressive Democratic Alliance(PDA) comprising of NDPP and BJP. After 25 NPF legislators joined PDA, the opposition-less government was renamed as United Democratic Alliance(UDA). Just around eight months into its existence, 21 NPF legislators led by the legislature party leader and UDA chairman T.R. Zeliang defected to NDPP but four NPF legislators chose to remain in the party. This was the second time that the state earned a dubious distinction of the opposition joining the ruling to leave the assembly without a watchdog. The second experiment with untruth, despite all the brouhaha over \u2018coming together \u2018 or unity for the sake of Naga political issue ; has no bearing on strengthening the hand of the leader to press for early solution. For the second time, Nagaland state politics would contribute to another dubious distinction of being the state without an opposition in the assembly. The coming together has more to do with power than with politics. It\u2019s a topsy-turvey situation going around in Nagaland -socially, spiritually, politically and economically. The prevailing environment for some years has troubled many thinkers and concerned citizens. What happens next? is a question that also unearths the answer in the power struggle within the NPF. The NPF always had its share of factionalism among party president Dr. Sh\u00fcrhozelie, chief minister Neiphiu Rio and T.R. Zeliang since 2014. Any shift in the equation between the three has always had its consequence on the party. Of all the three, T.R.Zeliang perhaps is most adept at playing mercurial politics which has enabled him to have more space to manoeuvre. Whether T.R. Zeliang, now in the NDPP will mean an end to rivalry between him and Rio? Also, will the coming together of two former Congress and NPF colleagues will witness a partnership for working in tandem to counter the potential challenge from the BJP in the coming months ahead of the 2023 assembly election?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rank political opportunism is not an exception in Nagaland but a rule in evolutionary politics that has created new alliances and political permutations. Nagaland politics has shown a high degree of political evolution away from the basic ideal of Naga nationalism,that had got embedded willy nilly into the system. It happened in 2015, when eight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}