In this current case, the bone of contention they started out with was the pet-punching bag of every player-- women getting 33% seat-reservation in the Municipal and Town councils. It seems to figure as the most important issue in the state as all manner of alliances are pinned together to punch it down or raise it up. This issue has reached flash points every now and then over the decade since it was enacted in the Nagaland Legislative Assembly in 2006. This time however, the actors never may have bargained for the aftermath—three dead, dozens injured, 42 or more office buildings razed across the state, several to the ground, documents et al(no doubt with major implications for various investigations going on about expenditures and corruption). Several vehicles torched, homes of candidates set on fire, age-old inner tribal alignments strained and fissured and to add to all this, a standing general demand for the chief minister of the state, T.R. Zeliang to resign with his cabinet. Or else. These two words resonate unsaid as a dangerous tail to every demand or diktat.