Nagaland Assembly revokes 2012 resolution on women quota

The Nagaland Assembly today revoked a resolution passed by it in 2012 to exempt the state from implementing 33 per cent women reservation in municipalities, a Constitutional provision.
The resolution was revoked after Naga Mothers Association's (NMA) moved the Supreme Court against it, Parliamentary Secretary for Municipal Affairs, Economics and Statistics, R Tohanba said.
He said that if it was not revoked, NLA would be giving an impression that House was against the Constitution and it would also be difficult for the House in convincing the Court regarding the validity of the resolution.
There would be technical hurdles to conduct polls in municipal and town councils and the state would be denied central resources, he said.

On reservation of wards for women, Chief Minister T R Zeliang said that if there were no candidates in the reserved seats, the same would remain reserved and the government will have to issue a notification to fill it up through nomination of women candidate.
The motion was then adopted by voice vote.

Independent MLA N Thomas Ngullie staged a walk out before passing the motion saying that the government should have taken the issue to the people.
On September 22, 2012, the Assembly had passed a resolution exempting Nagaland from the application of Article 243(T), Part IX A of the Constitution, dealing with reservation of seats in municipalities.

The House had been of the opinion that the Article infringed upon Art 371A which deals with certain special provisions with respect to the state of Nagaland.