Mokokchung, March 24 (MTNews): The NSCN-IM said that Nagaland state minister Temjen Imna Along’s remarks on the Naga flag and constitution has once again put himself in the hot glare of the Naga people. “He is utterly insensitive to the reality of Naga history and the God’s given political identity as a nation and as a people,” said NSCN-IM today in a statement.
According to NSCN-IM, the minister’s “utterance” has only exposed the minister’s “heartless and cruel mentality exploiting every given opportunity to castigate the very symbols that identify the Nagas that they are not a lost people.”
The NSCN-IM statement also said that Temjen Imna Along is “a boy of yesterday in the political arena but in a damning hurry to make his presence felt by dancing madly to the anti-Naga tune played by his political mentors, RSS/BJP.” It also said that, much before Imna Along was born, “thousands of Naga people have attained martyrdom defending the legitimate historical and political rights of the Nagas as symbolized by the Naga flag and the constitution” and that “many have embraced death to give a better future to our motherland.”
The NSCN-IM statement then said that the Naga flag was “designed as divinely inspired” and that it symbolized the covenant between God and the Naga people. “We have no objection to Imna Along’s desperateness to establish his political base backed by his mentor BJP/RSS,” NSCN-IM said, adding, “But in the process he should not fiddle with the Naga flag and the constitution that is too big for his size.”
NSCN-IM further said that Temjen Imna Along has proved himself as recklessly immature to touch on the sensitive Naga issue at such a critical stage. It added that the Naga flag and the constitution are something too big for “his flamboyant political gamble.”