Chubatemjen Ao denies calling BJP "a group of people" in Nagaland

By Sanjay Kumar

New Delhi, May 31 : Reacting strongly against a news report which apparently quoted him calling the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) "a group of people" in Nagaland, Secretary General of the Nagaland People's Party Chubatemjen Ao today clarified that he never referred to its alliance partner in "such a way".

Talking to ANI Ao said that his remarks have been quoted out of context and he was "talking about all political parties as a group of people with different background and ideologies and never mentioned BJP in particular".

NPF Secretary General and one of the founding members of the party said that his main purpose of his recent visit was to seek help fromhe Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M) to restructure his organization as a cadre based party on the way the Left party is organized.

Ao informed ANI that he also met the BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who is in charge of the saffron party in the North East, for a briefnteraction where the NPF delegation discussed the alliance arrangement and " how to strengthen it".

In the elections held in February this year the NPF returned to power second time consecutively after the defeating its main rival Congress in Nagaland.

In the sixty members Assembly NPF led Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) won 26 seats and with support of two MLAs each from theationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and four independents it formed the government.

This is the second time NPF and the BJP fought elections together and formed the government. In the last Assembly the BJP had seven members most of them defected later on to different parties. In the present House the party has two seats.

ANI