Kohima: Member of Parliament (MP) and General Secretary in charge of the communication department of the Indian National Congress Jairam Ramesh on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “copy-pasting” its manifesto on developing Eastern Nagaland areas.
Addressing a press conference at Congress Bhavan in Kohima, Ramesh questioned why the BJP suddenly woke up to make commitments to the demands made by Eastern Nagaland Peoples’ Organization (ENPO) only before the Assembly polls.
“I can only say it is a copycat manifesto because 10 days before the BJP released its manifesto, Congress also released its manifesto. One of the most important commitments in the Congress manifesto, which the BJP manifesto has repeated, is to give administrative and political power to the Eastern Region of the state which accounts for 45% of the population,” Ramesh said.
The BJP has smartly copy-pasted the commitments made by the Congress, he alleged.
Further, the BJP, he said, only makes huge promises to win elections. Had the BJP really meant its commitment to ENPO, Ramesh said those commitments would have been fulfilled by now.
In 2018, the BJP’s slogan “Election for Solution” should be “Election for Confusion”, likewise for the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), the slogan “Change is Coming” should be “Change is Gone”. He also pondered how the BJP manifesto with over 30 pages made no mention of the Naga political issue.
The Congress, in its manifesto, committed to creating a mini-secretariat at Tuensang, a separate Directorate of School Education, relocating the Department of Underdeveloped Areas (DUDA) at Tuensang, 33% job reservation on basis of annual vacancies, enabling economic relations between Myanmar and India.
Further, he said that development in the past five years was halted, citing the incomplete stadium in Dimapur, the High Court in Kohima, bad road connectivity in parts of Nagaland and so on.
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In the hands of the BJP, he also feared that Article 371(A) would face the fate of Article 370, which was revoked.
With 22 Congress candidates contesting, he said that the party is serious about fielding candidates to win the seats. The average age of candidates from the party, he informed was 35-37 years. In this regard, he informed that the party reflects the aspirations of the youth and the riddance of old politicians from the party has only paved the way for the young ones to contest. The youngest candidates from the party are aged 26 years.
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