JD(U) to contest Nagaland assembly poll

Kohima: The JD(U) will contest the Nagaland assembly election due this year, a top party leader said but did not mention the number of seats for which it will put up candidates. JD(U) secretary general K C Tyagi said that party president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is very keen to campaign in Nagaland and is looking forward to it.

He did not elaborate to how many seats JD(U) will contest since the polling date is yet to be announced by the Election Commission. The tenure of the present assembly ends on March 13.

The decision by the party to contest the poll in the north eastern state under the leadership of N S N Lotha, the JD(U) Nagaland convenor and former president of Naga Students Federation, was taken at a consultative meeting of JD(U) Nagaland here during the day, Tyagi said.

The JD(U) slogan of the election will be ‘development for Naga people’, Tyagi told a press conference here. Although, sufficient fund had been granted by the central government to the successive governments yet the progress and developments on the ground are very dismal, he said and vowed that JD(U) would endeavor to fulfill its objective by bringing down the corruption to its lowest ebb.

If voted to power, JD(U) is determined to utilize the funds judiciously for all round development of Nagaland , he added. Lotha claimed that some of the sitting legislator have contacted JD(U) seeking ticket but refused to divulge the names. A retired bureaucrat who had served as OSD to former chief minister Neiphiu Rio had formally joined the party and would be a contestant in the poll.

He said that the JD(U) would review its alliance with the Democratic Alliance Nagaland(DAN) which compromises NPF, BJP, NCP and JD(U). Meanwhile, the JD(U) state unit will stage a sit-in at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in the last week of January to highlight the issues facing Nagaland in particular and the north east in general, party sources said.