"Cong representative needed in LS to hear Naga people's voice"

The opposition Congress in Nagaland on Tuesday urged the people to vote for the party in the Lok Sabha election due this year to have the state people's voice heard in Parliament.

Nagaland has only one Lok Sabha constituency.

State Congress president K Therie said regional parties were given enough opportunities in the last 15 years, but they were hardly given one or two minutes to speak in Parliament.

The last time the Congress had won from the Nagaland Lok Sabha seat was in 1998. The Naga People's Front (NPF) nominees had been representing the state in the LS since 2004 while presently the seat is occupied by the ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) candidate Tokheho Yepthomi.

Stating that the Naga political issue needs the platform of a big political party in Parliament, Therie alleged the BJP has miserably failed to address the issue though it has huge number in the present Parliament.

The NPCC president called upon the electorate and all like-minded parties to give a chance to the Congress to send a representative to the Lok Sabha and assured them to sort out the Naga political issue.

The Framework Agreement with the NSCN (IM) to solve the issue was signed on August 3, 2015 but negotiation has continued till date without any solution, he said.

Therie maintained that from the beginning, the Congress has never trusted the BJP to resolve the issue as the saffron party is guided by the RSS, which propagates the idea of a Hindu nation through Hindutva.