Nagaland: DCM Y Patton rejects new portfolio as NDPP-BJP gap widens

Y Patton, Nagaland's Deputy Chief Minister and the saffron party's floor leader in the Assembly snubbed Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio on Monday and rejected his offer of the additional portfolio of Land Resources, indicating that the gap between the key alliance partners in Nagaland, the NDPP and the BJP, has widened further. Patton wrote to the Chief Minister, "With profound sadness, it is to inform you that I have to gracefully decline and hereby refuse to accept the new allotment of portfolio to me, that is, the Department of Land Resources, as I stand satisfied working together even without this additional assignment."

On Saturday, Patton was relieved of his Roads and Bridges portfolio, which was given to Chief Minister Rio's party member H Chuba Chang, who is simply an advisor in the Cabinet and not a minister. The news immediately circulated that Deputy Chief Minister Pattton and a group of BJP leaders were dissatisfied. Nalin Kohli, the BJP's in-charge for Nagaland, who recently visited the state, was taken into confidence by the Chief Minister, according to NDPP President Chingwang Konyak.

State BJP leaders have protested to the party's central headquarters that, under the guise of shifting his portfolio, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio is laying the groundwork for elections in which the NDPP will either join with another regional party, the NPF, or run in an alliance. All of this appears to be part of a plan to 'isolate' the BJP, which broke ties with its regional partners NPF and NPP in Manipur earlier this month.