Three north-eastern States, each with its own political peculiarities, will elect new Assemblies this fortnight.
By Sushanta Talukdar in KohimaCongress party ki di se President rule package Army rule package di se
(What has the Congress party given? Presidents Rule package, Army rule package.)
THIS composition in Nagamese, which is part of an audio compact disc brought out by a music band of the Neiphiu Rio-led Nagaland Peoples Front (NPF), has become a big hit among NPF workers and supporters in Kohima and elsewhere in Nagaland. The CD sold like hot cakes as electioneering for the March 5 Assembly polls gained momentum in the State.
On January 3, when Nagaland was brought under Presidents Rule for the fourth time since its inception, it not only brought an end to a nearly seven-month-long political drama marked by a series of defections and resignations by legislators but also pushed the State into election mode.
Initially, the imposition of Presidents Rule was the bone of contention between the Congress and its arch rival, the NPF. Other issues surfaced after the announcement of the poll dates.
In all, there are 218 candidates for the 60-member Nagaland Assembly. The Congress has fielded candidates in all the 60 seats while the NPF has fielded 56 candidates and decided to support the candidates of its ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the remaining four seats. Although the BJP has fielded its candidates in 23 constituencies, the two constituents of the ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) have decided to have friendly contests in 19 seats. Wherever the candidate of the NPF or the BJP is weak, he or she will support the other partys candidate in order to defeat the Congress.
Other parties in the electoral fray include the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Janata Dal (United), the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Lok Janashakti Party. These minor parties are expected to play a crucial role in government formation in case of a split verdict. As a constituent of the DAN government, the JD(U) had two representatives in the Assembly. They have now shifted their loyalty to the Congress.
The NPF and the other participants in the DAN government, which was dismissed a month before it completed its term, described the imposition of Presidents Rule as unconstitutional, illegal and humiliating to the mandate given by the people to the DAN to rule the State and alleged that it was politically motivated to suit the Congress intention. The Congress countered the NPF campaign by trying to convince the people that Presidents Rule was a natural corollary of the constitutional crisis that arose after the DAN lost the vote of confidence on December 13 in the State Assembly.
The NPF, on its part, claimed that it had not lost the trust vote and that it enjoyed a clear majority in a House of reduced strength. It filed a writ petition in the Guwahati High Court challenging the imposition of Central rule.
The Congress alleged that under DAN rule, the law enforcement agencies were unable to act, which was evident from the number of kidnappings and extortions that took place in full view of the police in Dimapur and other towns. The party claimed that after Central rule was imposed about 18 extortionists were arrested by the law-enforcing agencies.
Socio-economic issues figured prominently in the poll manifestos of the political parties. However, the imposition of Presidents Rule, the 16-point agreement of July 1960, and the controversy over a 16-page booklet titled Bedrock of Naga Society, published and circulated by the Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) in 2000, and the ongoing Naga peace process overshadowed other issues.
The 16-point agreement not only sparked off an intense political debate in Nagaland but also had a ripple effect in the neighbouring State of Manipur.
In its manifesto, the Congress promised that the Indian National Congress in Nagaland would continue to urge on the Government of India the need to implement the 16-point agreement of 1960 in letter and spirit. Clause 13 of the agreement states that the other Naga tribes inhabiting the areas contiguous to the present Nagaland be allowed to join Nagaland if they so desire. Clause 2 of the agreement states that Nagaland shall be placed under the Ministry of External Affairs.
The agreement was arrived at following discussions between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and leaders of the Naga Peoples Convention (NPC), and the Government of India recognised the formation of Nagaland as a full-fledged State within the Union of India. Accordingly, the territory was placed under the Nagaland Transitional Provisions Regulation, 1961, which provided for an Interim Body consisting of 45 members to be elected by various tribes according to the customs, traditions and practice of the respective tribes. Subsequently, Nagaland attained statehood with the enactment of the State of Nagaland Act, 1962, by Parliament. The Interim Body was dissolved on November 30, 1963, and the State of Nagaland was formally inaugurated on December 1, 1963. After elections in January 1964, the first Nagaland Legislative Assembly was constituted on February 11, 1964.
The NPF secretary-general, Chubatemjen Ao, told Frontline that the 16-point agreement had not addressed the ultimate goal of the Naga people. He said the NPF would go beyond the agreement.
On September 25, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) had issued a decree banning S.C. Jamir and co-author Alemthemshi Jamir from entering Naga soil for attempting to glorify through the book Bedrock of Naga Society the 16-point agreement by stating that attainment of statehood had fulfilled the aspirations of the Nagas and that statehood is a reality and sovereignty is myth. Jamir is the only living signatory to the agreement. The NPF used the booklet as another campaign tool against the Congress. The Congress sought to counter it by saying that Bedrock of Naga Society was a closed chapter. But the NPF insists it has hurt the sentiments of the Naga people.
The Naga Peoples Convention had signed the 16-point agreement, which was to blame for forming the Nagaland State in 1963. The majority of Nagas were divided into different administrative units of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. The 16-point agreement was an imposition of Indias will on Nagas, said NSCN(I-M) chairman Isak Chisi Swu in his address at the Fourth Consultative meeting held on January 20 and 21, 2005, at the council headquarters at Hebron, 40 km from Dimapur.
The ongoing peace talks between the Centre and the NSCN(I-M) also figured prominently in the electioneering. The Naga problem is a political issue that has to be resolved through peaceful and painstaking negotiations and through good faith among all sides. All sections of Naga society have to come together to strengthen the peace process in Nagaland. It shall be the endeavour of the Indian National Congress to enlist the support and cooperation of all civil society groups, church organisations and various Hohos, including the village councils, the Congress promised in its manifesto.
On April 23, 2003, the DAN government constituted a 22-member Consultative Committee of Peace headed by the Chief Minister himself. In accordance with the resolution of the Consultative Committee, the government pursued the policy of maintaining equi-closeness to all underground groups and act as a facilitator. The committee also supported the resolution on integration of contiguous Naga-inhabited areas which came before the Legislative Assembly on December 16, 2003.
The Congress alleged that the NPFs equi-closeness policy had practically reduced the police and the paramilitary forces to mere spectators when extortions and inter-factional killings took place. While the outcome of the March 5 polls is expected to have a direct bearing on the fate of the peace process, the NSCN(I-M) says that it does not favour any political party.
It maintains that the Naga political cause is most important for the NSCN (I-M) and the organisation will not compromise its principles by participating in an election held under the Indian Constitution. The NSCN (Khaplang) too has asked all Naga underground factions not to involve themselves in any manner in the elections.
By Sushanta Talukdar in ShillongMEGHALAYA, which has become synonymous with political instability, is going to the polls on March 3. The constituents of the Congress-led coalition fell apart ahead of the polls. Since Meghalayas inception in 1972, as many as 18 governments have ruled the State.
During electioneering, the Congress harped on stability and appealed to the voters to give it a majority and enable it to form a stable government. In the outgoing 60-member Assembly, the Congress, which headed the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government, had a strength of 29 MLAs.
Without a stable government, most of the development schemes could not be implemented on time. It is difficult to get the approval of new ventures from coalition partners who differ in opinion, the Congress poll manifesto stated.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) hopes to capture power in Shillong as, according to it, the people of Meghalaya will vote for a change. Former Lok Sabha Speaker and NCP general secretary Purno Agitok Sangma has formally returned to State politics after three decades in national politics. He has filed his nomination from the Tura constituency. At election rallies, he maintains that the Khasi, Garo and Jaintia people had joined hands to vote for change in the same spirit as they had done 35 years ago during the hill State movement.
He said frequent change of guard in the Congress-led government indicated that the ruling party was facing a leadership crisis. Stating that the people of Meghalaya have been yearning for a change, he claimed that the NCP would be able to provide a viable alternative to both the Congress and the regional parties, which he said had failed on all fronts. Sangma was Chief Minister during 1988-90.
The Congress is also facing a tough fight from regional parties, which were its erstwhile partners in power. These parties the United Democratic Party (UDP), the Hill State Peoples Democratic Party (HSPDP), the Meghalaya Democratic Party (MDP), and the Khun Hyentrip National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) have not only put up candidates against the Congress but made corruption and failure by the Congress-led government to deliver major poll planks.
The UDP had nine representatives, the MDP four and the HSPDP and the KHNAM two each, while the NCP had 13 and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) two in the outgoing Assembly. There were five independent members.
Sangma projected himself as a chief ministerial candidate and urged the voters not to treat the present polls as just another election. He said it was not enough to elect an efficient MLA, for development to take place in villages it is important to ensure that an efficient Chief Minister takes office.
The NCP will get an absolute majority and after serving the country as an MP for 30 long years I have come back to Meghalaya to take charge as Chief Minister. My people have elected me to Parliament a record 10 times. It is now time to focus on Meghalaya, which is facing a leadership crisis, Sangma said.
Accusing the Congress of causing political instability in the State, he claimed that the NCP would provide a single-party government. Observing the political climate in the last five years, the NCP is committed to providing a stable government with a strong leadership, which is also the need of the hour, he said. The NCP won 20 seats in the previous elections but seven of its legislators shifted their loyalties to the Congress, increasing the Congress strength from 22 to 29, still two short of a majority. The Congress took the support of regional parties to come to power.
The NCP alleged that development in all spheres had come to a standstill and that the existing infrastructure had collapsed. The party promised to set up a vigilance commission to monitor the implementation of government-funded projects.
Sangmas sons James K. Sangma and Conrad K. Sangma have filed their papers from Rongchugiri and Selsela constituencies respectively.
The Congress has fielded candidates in all the 60 seats, with Chief Minister D.D. Lapang seeking re-election from Nongpoh constituency. In Baghmara constituency, polling has been rescheduled to March 22 following the death of the Congress nominee and sitting MLA, Sengran M. Sangma.
Altogether there are 331 candidates, including Lapang and five former Chief Ministers Sangma, J.D. Rymbai, E.K. Mawlong, F.A. Khonglam and Salseng C. Marak.
The opponents of the Congress, particularly the NCP, hopes to gain from the infighting in the Congress, which was there all through its term in government.
In Garo Hills, the major poll plank of the NCP is the twin incidents of police firing at Tura and Williamnagar on September 30, 2005, in which nine protestors were killed and several others were injured during two Garo Students Union (GSU) protest rallies against the governments decision to bifurcate the Meghalaya Board of Secondary Education. The NCP distributed CDs containing clippings of the two incidents to mobilise support among the voters. Complaints were lodged against Sangma that he had circulated the CD without the consent of the bereaved families.
Acting on the complaint, the Election Commission served a show-cause notice on Sangma but gave him a clean chit after getting a satisfactory reply. The EC decision has helped the NCP to push the issue more vigorously among the voters in Garo Hills.
By Sushanta Talukdar in AgartalaTHE February 23 Assembly elections in Tripura virtually turned the tiny north-eastern State into a battleground. The two political rivals, the Congress and the Left parties, which had reached an understanding after the 2004 Lok Sabha elections to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out of power at the Centre, intensified their attacks against each other over a host of issues. By launching a vigorous campaign against the Left Front government in Tripura, the Congress wanted to send a message across the country that it is ready to take on the Left parties in the next Lok Sabha elections.
The Left, on its part, expected to be elected to power for the fourth consecutive term in the State and hoped that the record of stability and progress it has established in Tripura would boost its efforts to form a third alternative at the Centre in association with democratic and secular parties.
In the 2003 Assembly elections, the Left Front won 41 seats in the 60-member Assembly; the Congress 13; and its ally, the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), six. The Congress once again forged an alliance with the INPT, and another ally of it was the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS).
The Congress fielded 48 candidates, the INPT 11 and the PDS one. Among the three Left Front constituents the Communist Party of India (Marxist) contested in 56 constituencies, the Communist Party of India (CPI) in two and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) in two. The Forward Bloc, which was a Left constituent, quit ahead of the polls, displeased over the seat-sharing arrangement. It fielded candidates in 12 seats.
The Left Front maintained that the FBs decision to withdraw would not have any impact on its poll prospects.
The CPI(M) was ahead in electioneering. It organised rallies of women and youth in Agartala to display the strong base of the ruling party among various sections of the people. This helped the Left Front build up the required momentum for a massive rally on February 3, which was addressed by party general secretary Prakash Karat.
The Congress rally, chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi at the same venue on February 18, also drew a huge crowd. The party, desperate to create a wave of vote for change, pinned its hopes on the rally. Sonia Gandhi appealed to the voters to vote out the Left Front to end its misrule and injustice towards the people during the last 15 years.
She alleged that women and children were not safe under the Left rule and that the Central fund of about Rs.500 crore meant for development work remained unutilised. The Congress also alleged that there were irregularities in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in the State.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told voters of Tripura that the time has come for a change, and promised to provide a better government if the Congress was voted to power. However, he committed a faux pas: seeking to highlight the NREGA as a major achievement of the United Progressive Alliance government, he said the scheme had helped lakhs of people in Tripura.
Left leaders were quick to seize the opportunity to point out that the Prime Ministers speech exposed the falsehood in the Congress campaign over the implementation of Central schemes. Sonia Gandhi told the rally that the Congress would not be soft towards the CPI(M) and that it took the support of the Left parties only to keep the BJP out of power. This statement appeared to set the tone of the electioneering for the next Lok Sabha polls.
The Left Front replied to the Congress show by organising another rally on February 20 at the same venue. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar addressed a huge gathering. The Left perhaps wanted to show that its fortress was impregnable and that people wanted it to continue in power. Manik Sarkar appealed to the voters to give a befitting reply to the Congress misinformation campaign by giving an overwhelming majority to the Left and ensuring the installation of the sixth Left Front government in Tripura. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat, and senior leaders of the CPI and the RSP also addressed election rallies and countered what they termed as false propaganda by the Congress.
Apart from Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, the Congress also lined up a battery of star campaigners who included senior Central Ministers Pranab Mukherjee, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, Oscar Fernandes and Sontosh Mohan Dev and Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Union Minister of State in the Prime Ministers Office Prithviraj Chavan camped in the State as the All India Congress Committee leader in charge of Tripura.
Tribal people, who constitute 31 per cent of the States 31.99 lakh population, thronged the CPI(M) rallies. The party has built up a strong support base among the tribal people through years of struggles despite attacks and threats from insurgent outfits. Successive Left Front governments have focussed on the primary areas of livelihood, education, health and roads to alleviate the living conditions of the tribal people.
The tribal movements in the 1940s in the State were organised by the erstwhile Gana Mukti Parishad (GMP) headed by iconic Communist leader and former Chief Minister Dasarath Deb. The GMP led struggles for the rights of the tribal people to land and forest. The presence of a strong support base among the tribal people helped the Left Front win 13 of the 20 seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes in the previous Assembly polls; the Congress won only one seat and the INPT six.
As a counter to the Congress-INPT-PDS campaign of misrule of Left Front for the past 15 years and failure on all fronts, the Left Front highlighted its achievements during its past three terms. The rate of literacy in the State is around 80.14 per cent, which is the highest among all the north-eastern States and higher than the national average. According to the National Family Health Survey, 97 per cent households in Tripura had access to toilet facility in 2005-06. The per capita income in Tripura was Rs.11,012 in 1998, which rose to Rs.20,357 in 2004. The average growth rate of the State, which was 6.27 per cent in 1998, was 7.75 per cent in 2004; this was above the national figure for the period. Tripura has become the second largest producer of rubber in the country after Kerala and this achievement has gone a long way in tackling the livelihood problem of tribal forest-dwellers, whose income level has gone up manifold.
In order to woo State government employees, the Congress promised to increase the retirement age to 60 years, pointing out that the Left Front was opposed to increasing the retirement age. Left leaders, however, maintained that the Congress was making a hollow promise: they pointed to the contradiction in its promises of providing 50,000 jobs to unemployed youth and increasing the retirement age. They held that wrong economic policies of the successive Congress and BJP governments at the Centre were responsible for the growing unemployment in the State and in the country.
The Congress-INPT alliance also became a major poll issue for the Left Front. Describing the alliance as unholy and opportunistic, Left Front leaders alleged that the INPT was only a cover for secessionist armed extremists.
In its poll manifesto and also at its election rallies, the Left Front alleged: In 2000, the political facade of the extremists the IPFT, subsequently rechristened as INPT captured the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) at gun-point, making the entire poll process a farce. Emboldened by such tactics, the armed extremists arrogantly announced that they would also capture the 2003 Assembly elections in a similar fashion and oust the Left Front government.
Throwing his weight behind such extremists groups, INPT leader Mr. B.K. Hranghawl, in his speech at a conference in Geneva, lent his support to statements made by the extremists earlier like opposing the merger of Tripura with the Indian union and preaching communal hatred, etc. There was strong and vociferous protest and resentment all over Tripura against Hranghawls utterances. However, the Congress party turned a deaf ear to all this and entered into direct alliance with INPT and thereby an indirect alliance with the extremists with the intention to oust the Left Front government from office. The extremists, taking advantage of the open and porous Indo-Bangladesh border and inadequate strength of security forces, roamed about the tribal hamlets, specially in areas having mixed population, to terrorise the voters at gun-point. They carried out attacks in many places and there were also killings and bloodshed. A desperate attempt was thereby made to try and create an atmosphere of uncertainty, instability and panic.
The Left Front also cautioned against a return to the horror days of 1988-1993, during which, it alleged, the Congress-Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti-led coalition government had let loose a reign of terror in the State.
The CPI(M), however, claimed that after the last Assembly elections, more than 57,000 families, long-time supporters of the Congress and the INPT, became disillusioned with them and joined the Left Front with a view to participating in the development process. Manik Sarkar and other Left leaders highlighted this point at every election rally. In 2005, the Left Front won the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council polls.
The Chief Minister said the election rallies taken out by the CPI(M) and its allies across the State reflected the desire of a large section of the people to give the ruling Left Front another term and carry forward the development work initiated by its government.
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