Kohima: Naga People's Front (NPF) legislature party leader T R Zeliang has been appointed as the new chairman of Nagaland's ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA), replacing Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio in the post. Former opposition party NPF was granted two cabinet berths in the government almost five months after coming together with the ruling dispensation to form an all-party alliance in the northeastern state.
UDA members, during a meeting on Tuesday, unanimously decided that Rio will step down from the chairmanship of the ruling alliance and Zeliang will assume charge in his place. He will have the status of a cabinet minister, state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Neiba Kronu told reporters. Another NPF MLA will be sworn in as a cabinet minister on Wednesday but his name will not be disclosed before the oath-taking ceremony in Raj Bhavan, and his selection will be the prerogative of the chief minister, Kronu said.
The appointment will be made against a vacant cabinet berth and it will not affect the cabinet berth-sharing between the NDPP and BJP, he said. In the 60-member assembly, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) has 21 MLAs, NPF has 25, BJP 12, and two are Independent legislators. NDPP and BJP had an alliance before the 2018 assembly elections. However, in July last year, opposition NPF proposed an all-party government to unitedly push for an early solution to the Naga political issue. The ruling dispensation accepted the proposal and christened it as Nagaland United Government in August, later re-naming it as UDA in September.
Currently, NDPP has four cabinet ministers, BJP has six and one is an Independent MLA. Following the death of the then environment minister C M Chang of the NDPP in October 2020, no fresh appointment was made. Asked when the BJP was comfortable with the arrangement, the party's national spokesperson and advisor in the UDA government, Mmhonlumo Kikon, said that such a question does not arise as the saffron party members were present in the meeting and this was a simple exercise of changing the UDA chairman. To a query whether Rio will campaign in the upcoming Manipur assembly elections, Kronu said that the Nagaland chief minister will campaign for NPF candidates. However, he refrained from commenting whether Rio will also campaign for BJP candidates.
PTI
