Indian Tribal News Service
New Delhi
The stage is set for S Phangnon Konyak to be elected to the Rajya Sabha unopposed as no other candidate filed nomination for the March 31 election to the lone seat from the State on Monday, which was the last day. Her election to the Upper House is thus guaranteed.
While Konyak will be the first woman Rajya Sabha member from the State, she will be the second Naga woman parliamentarian. It was way back in 1977 that Rano M Shaiza was elected to the Lok Sabha. Intriguingly, Nagaland, which came into existence in 1963, has never had a woman MLA.
Konyak was supposed to have a fight but it was an anti-climax as the Naga People’s Front (NPF), which had expressed “strong determination” to field a candidate despite being a part of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) that runs an opposition-less government in the state backed out at the last moment.
The tenure of the incumbent Rajya Sabha member from Nagaland, KG Kenye of NPF, ends on April 2.
Konyak is the UDA’s consensus candidate and incidentally, the first BJP member from Nagaland to be sent to Parliament. She is the BJP’s State woman wing president
In the 60-member assembly, NDPP has 21 MLAs, NPF 25, BJP 12 and there are two Independent MLAs — all of whom joined hands in September 2021 to form UDA for facilitating an early solution to the vexed Naga political dialogue.
On Saturday, NPF president Shurhozelie Liezietsu had written to its legislature party to consider nominating its working president and former home minister Thenucho Tunyi for the election.
However, the working committee and the legislative wing of the NPF failed to come to a conclusion till Sunday, party sources said.
Under the given situation, the NPF did not file nomination. As NPF refrained from filing nomination, Konyak — the BJP women’s wing’s state president — was the only candidate to have filed nomination, thus securing her seat without a contest.
