Lone Janata Dal-United (JD-U) MLA in Nagaland and Agriculture Minister Kaito G Aye and some other party leaders joined the ruling Nationalist Democratic Political Party (NDPP) on Monday. With this, the strength of the NDPP in the 60-member Assembly went up to 28.
State JD(U) president NSN Lotha said he wasn’t surprised by the latest developments. “Though Kaito was elected on a JDU ticket, his heart was never with the party and he had been trying to defect to the BJP and met Ram Madhav, BJP general secretary in-charge of northeast, twice with the request,” said Lotha.
“Kaito expected the BJP to welcome him with open arms. However, Madhav asked him to respect the principles of alliance and not upset JD(U) national president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar,” he added.
Lotha said Kaito was ambitious, opportunistic and had earlier, even gone against Kumar’s stand on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
“When the national president refused to accept the symbolic representation offered by the BJP in the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) and decided to give outside support to the Narendra Modi government, Kaito decided to leave the party for greener pastures,” said Lotha, adding his party would continue to fight to make Nagaland free of 3C’s — crime, corruption and communalism.
Meanwhile, the NDPP leadership welcomed the new members and said all rumours floated by political rivals would now be put to rest.
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