When the 74 years-old veteran politician and former Chief Minister S.C. Jamir returns tothe 10th State Assembly in Kohima, he will not be sitting at his familiar chair. Indeed, it is clear that itwill require a great deal of conscious political efforts before the fractured verdict of the people can betranslated into a stable arrangement for governance, though it is now apparent that a non-Congress regime isset to take the seat of power in the State after an interregnum of 20 years.
The sidelining of the Congress party will not only delight its rivals - the Nagaland People's Front (NPF), anew political entity which took shape few months before the elections, and the the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)which put up an 'impressive show' by winning seven seats in the State - but also the dominant insurgent groupin the State - the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM). The NSCN-IM, in the 13th yearof its present avatar, is currently engaged in negotiations with the Union government.
There were several allegations, mostly from the Congress Party in Nagaland, regarding the interference of themilitant group in the electoral process. The NSCN-IM Chairman, Isak Swu, had, after a round of negotiationswith the Union Government at Delhi in January 2003, asserted that his organisation would not involve itself orinterfere in the election process. Nevertheless, the shadow of the group loomed large over the voting process,as armed-cadres threatened candidates and voters, abducted supporters and workers of political parties, andgenerally to ensure that the Jamir Government did not come back to power.
There were also cases of NSCN-IM cadres campaigning openly in favour of the BJP candidate - as in the Longkhim-Chareconstituency in Tuensang, the largest among Nagaland's seven districts - and also threatened villagers not tovote for the Congress candidate. The BJP candidate, A. Imtilemba went on to record a handsome victory.