Chümoukedima and Niuland has the population for 6 Assembly seats: Jacob

March 19, 2023 34 Views No Comment

Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 18

According to the Minister for Public Health Engineering and Cooperation Jacob Zhimomi, Chümoukedima and Niuland districts would get six Assembly seats. The prediction however would be subject to whether or not Nagaland affects a delimitation exercise for redrawing of Assembly Constituencies, a process held in abeyance since 2002.

Zhimomi made the comment at a thanksgiving programme, at his residence in Thilixu on March 18, on account of his victory from the 4 Ghaspani-I Assembly seat in the elections to the 14th Nagaland Legislative Assembly, 2023. As stated by him, Niuland would get 2 and Chümoukedima 4 seats.

Taking the mandate of the 2023 elections and with the support of the people of the constituency, he said that it would be his endeavour to realise the goal and the correlated development changes that would come with the creation of more electoral constituencies.

Further queried on the matter after the programme, he said the two new districts have the population and the area. “I have concern for these two districts because we are covering a (relatively) huge geographical area and we have the population. So we will work towards it,” he said.

He maintained that delimitation process was in the midst of preparation and decision would be taken later. He however declined to comment on whether it implied increasing the total number of Assembly seats or redistributing the existing number of seats.

33 % Reservation
He said that the Nagaland state government is serious to conduct the elections to the Urban Local Bodies as notified recently.

On the spectre of a repeat of the violent upheavals witnessed in 2017, he said, “I think consultation has been done, if there is any consultation required the Chief Minister and the government will take the decision.” He did not go into details but he said that several rounds of consultation have taken place and that the government will proceed “because we cannot shun the path of development. I think many districts are willing.”

“What is wrong with women’s participation in the ULBs, there is nothing wrong about it,” he added.

On the objection to the government’s choice of terminology in the Third Amendment to the Nagaland Municipal Act, he said that the government would take a look if there is such a need. “But the Chief Minister will take a call,” he maintained.

The Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition Act was another issue which was swept under the carpet, despite public consultations, during the last Assembly tenure. He chose not to comment on it, however.

Earlier, in his address at the programme, he said the new government was set on prioritizing transparency and accountability. He said that it would be unjustified to put the blame on the previous governments on the state’s poor showing in the development front.

According to him, the Chief Ministers, starting from P Shilu Ao to Neiphiu Rio did as best they could under difficult political circumstances.

For an economy based on salaries, he said that the state government has been hard pressed, financially. An employee-count well over 1.2 lakh, of which around 50,000 were contractual, he said that the figure is well over the required limit. According to him, the Police and Education departments alone account for around Rs 2000 crore in salary expenses.
With an unresolved political issue, he expressed regret that the state has been unable to exploit the available natural resources.