Upset with the “indifferent attitude” of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Naga People’s Front (NPF) on Saturday decided to pull out of the BJP-led coalition government in Manipur after the Lok Sabha election process is over.
Senior NPF leader and former Nagaland chief minister TR Zeliang disclosed on Twitter that the decision was taken after a review meeting with party office bearers and NPF MLAs from Manipur.
“After an intense deliberation and review meeting with the party functionaries and the NPF MLAs of Manipur state, the NPF party has decided in principle to pull out our 4 MLAs from the BJP-led government in Manipur headed by N Biren Singh soon after the Lok Sabha election is completed,” he wrote.
Withdrawal of support by the 4 NPF MLAs won’t affect the BJP-led government. At present, BJP has 31 of the 60 MLAs in the state assembly and it also has the support of the 4 National People’s Party legislators and one Lok Janshakti Party MLA.
“This decision at this juncture is necessitated due to the indifferent attitude of the BJP towards us, its coalition partner in Manipur and also in the state of Nagaland. Further implementation of this decision will be finalized after the election process,” Zeliang added.
{{/usCountry}}“This decision at this juncture is necessitated due to the indifferent attitude of the BJP towards us, its coalition partner in Manipur and also in the state of Nagaland. Further implementation of this decision will be finalized after the election process,” Zeliang added.
{{/usCountry}}Though BJP had emerged as the second largest party behind the Congress after assembly elections in Manipur in 2017, it was able to form the government with the support of NPF, NPP and others.
But relations between BJP and NPF soured in 2018, when the former decided to break its 15-year-long association with the latter in Nagaland and joined hands with the newly formed Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) to contest the Nagaland assembly polls.
NPF emerged as the single largest party in the Nagaland assembly polls last year with 26 of the total 60 seats, BJP with 12 and NDPP with 18 and formed the government with the support of the smaller parties and one Independent MLA.
In past months, NPF had been sending feelers to BJP to revive the ‘friendship’ ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, but the latter ignored the feelers.
When contacted about the new political development, BJP’s Manipur unit chief spokesperson S Tikendra said, “It is untimely to make a comment.”