Making its stand clear, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) resolved in its June 12 meeting to make a strong appeal to the Prime Minister and the NDA government. The party emphasized that the interests of weaker sections, minorities, and all religions must be protected to ensure secularism and equality for all under the Constitution of India. This resolution was among several adopted by the ruling party, which came against the backdrop of anti-BJP sentiment over attacks on Christian missionaries and institutions across the nation. The wave of anti-BJP sentiment in states such as Nagaland and Meghalaya negatively impacted the BJP and its alliance partners. The NDPP candidate of the ruling Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) suffered collateral damage, and anti-BJP votes shifted to the Congress. In Meghalaya, the ruling National People\u2019s Party, which is in alliance with the BJP also suffered losses at Shillong and Tura parliamentary constituencies to a regional party and Congress respectively. It is pertinent to mention that the Congress, which won the Lok Sabha seat in Nagaland by defeating the PDA consensus candidate from the NDPP, capitalized on Christian sentiments against the BJP. They framed the issue such that a vote for the NDPP was perceived as a vote for the BJP. Adding to this sentiment, the NBCC issued a statement condemning the anti-Christian motives and activities of the BJP in the Hindi heartland, leaving no room for further interpretation. This statement was particularly ill-timed for the NDPP, as it underscored its alliance with an extreme right-wing pro-Hindu party accused of promoting anti-minority rhetoric.The voters did not exercise their judgment fairly. First, the NDPP can by no stretch of the imagination be called anti-Christian. Secondly, the Congress can by no stretch of the imagination be called pro-Christian or suggest that its party members are devout believers en masse. For Congress, being secular is to appease minorities but doing precious little to mitigate their suffering. Congress has little for the uplift of Muslims but used them just as vote bank for the past 60\u201370 years. Also the 1984 Sikh genocide which clearly states the role of many Congress leaders. It is the Congress that lit the flame of communalism in the Hindi heart land. In ayodhya the Congress prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, possibly under the advise of some of the extreme right wing members, permitted shilaniyas inside the Babri masjid to play appease Hindu sentiments for political mileage. Even in the Shah Bano case, the Congress government went out of its way to allow a separate civil code for Muslims, despite protests from progressive Muslims themselves. In reality, no party in India can be truly secular. All the parties are playing politics based on cast, religion. The vote against BJP and its alliance partners in Nagaland and Meghalaya was a protest against anti-Christian acts or decisions made in other Hindi heartland states and not against regional parties to prevent NDA from getting as many seats as possible at the Centre. After riding on religion to win elections, the Congress now has to openly prove whether all regional parties having alliances with BJP in the region are anti-Christian. If BJP is accused of using religion for political gain, should not the same yardstick be applied on the non-BJP\/NDA parties?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Making its stand clear, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) resolved in its June 12 meeting to make a strong appeal to the Prime Minister and the NDA government. The party emphasized that the interests of weaker sections, minorities, and all religions must be protected to ensure secularism and equality for all under the Constitution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428852","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}