Kohima: Finally, TR Zeliang and Dr Shurhozelie Lietzietsu have ender differences a couple of months before the assembly polls.
TR Zeliang told MP Neiphiu Rio that he did not approach him in June this year, but an emissary, a close relative of Rio, met him several times with a proposal that both must work together.
In response to a letter to TR Zeliang from Neiphiu Rio, the Nagaland CM wrote to the latter on Monday stating, “According to the formula, I was to canvass for a ministerial berth for you in New Delhi and you would support me in the state.”
Subsequently, when 36 Naga People’s Front (NPF) MLAs, 4 BJP MLAs and 7 Independents lent their support to him through constitutional and democratic means and he became Chief Minister, TR Zeliang said in t7he letter to Rio.
“This exercise was not therefore commenced by me but you and your emissary,” it said.
After he became CM, in view of Rio’s demand, the NPF MLAs selected him first as interim president and therefore as the president of the party which was allegedly ratified at the general convention held on September 20, 2017, Zeliang said in the letter.
It said that this usurpation was therefore at Rio’s own behest.
Some days back, the letter said, Rio engaged himself in an evaluation exercise by calling the NPF MLAs one by one for change of guard in his favour, which went in vain, it said.
“At the core committee’s meeting held on November 28, 2017, where members raised the question of re-issue of party tickets to them, you rejected it on ground that the time for such a demand had not arisen,” Zeliang further told Rio in the letter.
The letter said Rio also unilaterally rejected the call of Dr Shurhozelie Lietzietsu for reconciliation without consulting Zeliang or his colleagues.
The letter said that it is a public fact that Rio is the architect of NDPP, but he has neither disassociated from NDPP nor from NPF, whereby creating confusions among the followers.
“Fearing uncertainty of their political future, around 28 MLAs came to me and suggested that all of us must reconcile with Dr Shurhozelie Lietzietsu since protection of the party’s ‘cock’ symbol from being frozen was the foremost electoral imperative,” the letter to Rio said.
Accordingly, on December 8, as per wishes of more than a majority of the NPF MLAs, the Memorandum of Reconciliation was signed between Zeliang and Dr Shurhozelie Lietzietsu in the presence of three MLAs each group, it said.
This reconciliation also acquires utmost relevance when all Nagas are longing for early solution well before the elections, the letter added.
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