DIMAPUR, APRIL 4 (MExN): The Naga Peoples’ Front has written to the Chief Election Commissioner, India expressing concerns at actions taken by the Students Union Movement of Arunachal (SUMA) and called upon the ECI to “ban” the said association, till the conclusion of the ensuing Lok Sabha polls. A press note from the NPF alleged that SUMA “has attacked NPF party workers and also burnt down a Nagaland registered vehicle in Donyi-Polo Ashok Hotel, Itanagar on April 2.” The party said that SUMA had “earlier displayed deep antipathy towards NPF,” and had asked the NPF “not to enter Arunachal Pradesh at the behest of its political masters.”
It lamented that the student body has become an “extra constitutional entity against evolution of a free polity based upon democratic institutions like the NPF.” “Political parties are the source and sustenance of our representative democracy and any intercession with this fundamental is tantamount to subversion of democracy,” the NPF stated. The party called for “immediate intervention” from the ECI in “banning the organization” till the conduct of elections. “SUMA has demonstrably evidenced its nefarious interference in the conduct of elections in Arunachal Pradesh to the detriment of the NPF,” it stated. It further asked the ECI to instruct the CEO of Arunachal Pradesh to “freeze all capabilities of SUMA in order to enable NPF to freely and fairly campaign in the state, towards an objective and even handed poll in the state.” The NPF has fielded candidates in 12 Assembly Constituencies of Arunachal Pradesh for the upcoming LS polls and has rendered support to the BJP in East Arunachal Parliamentary constituency and to the PPA in West Arunachal seat.
