Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Wednesday announced their support to Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphu Rio, but stopped short of saying whether it would be part of the government. In the recently concluded Assembly elections, the NCP had the best performance among the opposition parties, winning seven of the 12 seats it contested in the recently held assembly elections.
NCP general secretary, north-east in-charge, Narendra Verma said the NCP chief had decided to accept the leadership of Chief Minister Neiphui Rio “in the larger interest of the state of Nagaland”.
In a statement on Wednesday, there is no mention of the BJP
“The first meeting of the NCP legislature party took place on 4th March at Kohima,” he said in a statement.
“The local newly elected MLAs and the NCP local unit of Nagaland were of the opinion that we must be part of the government which is going to be headed by Mr N. Rio, Chief of NDPP and Chief Minister of Nagaland in the larger interest of the State of Nagaland and our own good relationship with Mr N. Rio.
This was left to the Nationalist Congress
Pawar also approved the proposal to appoint NCP MLA Picto Shohe as the leader of the NCP Legislature Party in Nagaland, P Lonon as the deputy leader of the NCP Legislature Party and Namri Nchang as the chief whip.
With this development, Nagaland appears to be marching towards becoming an Oppositionless states, as it has the support of all political parties as NPP, NPF, LJP (Ram Vilas), RPI (Athawale), Janata Dal (United) and Independents have backed Rio.