Nagaland elections: Rio set to be Nagaland's chief minister for a record fifth term

Nagaland political stalwart and its longest serving chief minister Neiphiu Rio is set to assume office as chief minister for a fifth consecutive term after a convincing win for his party and its ally the BJP Together the two parties have secured 33 seats in the 60member Nagaland assemblyThe septuagenarian leader has with this victory broken the record of veteran leader S C Jamir who helmed the northeastern state thriceRio personally defeated Congress Seyievelie Sachu a greenhorn in the political arena in the Northern Angami II constituency in the process helping emasculate the grand old party in the state where at one time it was entrenchedBorn into an Angami Naga family on November 11 1950 he received his early education at Kohimas Baptist English School and then went on to study at the Sainik School Purulia in West Bengal He later studied at St Josephs College Darjeeling and came back to finish his graduation from Kohima Arts CollegeAn active student leader during his school and college days Rio entered politics at a very young age He began his nearly five decade long political career as the president of the youth wing of the United Democratic Front in Kohima district in 1974 and later became its Nagaland presidentOf the eight state elections he has contested so far Rio lost only the first one in 1987 He had fought the election then as an Independent aspirant His political career took an upswing from his second attempt just two years later in 1989 which he made after joining CongressThere was no looking back for him after that first tentative victory and Rio went on to win the subsequent polls He served his state in various capacities including being the home minister in Jamirs ministry till 2002 That year he however quit Congress and was instrumental in reviving the cock symbol of Naga Peoples Front NPF Rio managed to dethrone Jamir and became the chief minister for the first time in 2003 He was however dismissed as chief minister when Presidents Rule was imposed in the state in January 2008Also read Nagaland 1 killed 13 injured as bus carrying polling security personnel overturns in WokhaIn the next election two months later his party emerged as the single largest one and Rio was invited to form the government as the leader of NPFled Democratic Alliance of Nagaland In the next state election in 2013 NPF won a thumping majority and Rio was reelected as chief minister for the third termHe continued in the post till 2014 when he decided to resign and venture to the national ParliamentHe used to tell reporters that his desire to join national politics stemmed from a need to be the voice of his people to press the Centre for an early solution to the Naga peace talksNonetheless he resigned from the Lok Sabha on February 9 2018 and returned to state politicsWith the brewing internal differences within his then home party the NPF Rio joined the newly formed Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party NDPP He was chosen to be the NDPP leader and managed to break the then alliance partnership between NPF and BJP Rio a master strategist then contested the 2018 state general elections with a prepoll agreement with the saffron partyThe alliance won 30 seats 18 by the regional party and 12 by the saffron party and formed the government with the support of 2 NPP MLAs one from JDU and an Independent MLA ending the 15year reign of NPF in the stateH A Hongnao Konyak vicepresident Konyak Union KU attributed Rios sustained victory at electoral politics to his expertise at forging alliances He knows that that his party may not be able to sail through on its own Hence he enters into carefully thought out alliances Even this time he continued the alliance with the party in power at the Centre and made them concede majority seats to his NDPP Konyak told PTIThis time too the NDPPBJP prepoll alliance has contested the Nagaland poll on the same of 4020 seatsharing formula as in 2018 with the understanding that Rio will be the face of its new governmentThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever