Neiphiu Rio To Take Oath As Nagaland Chief Minister Today

Kohima:  Neiphiu Rio, whose party the BJP has partnered with in Nagaland, will take oath today as the Chief Minister of the state. This comes after the BJP and the Nationalist Democratic People's Party (NDPP) won 29 seats in the elections, results for which were announced last week. BJP chief Amit Shah and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will attend the ceremony in state capital Kohima. The BJP's Y Patton will also take oath as the state's deputy chief minister.

Source said that Meghalaya's newly-appointed Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and his counterparts from  Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Manipur too will be present at the swearing-in ceremony.

This will be Neiphiu Rio's fourth time as the Chief Minister of Nagaland. Mr Rio was the Chief Minister of Nagaland for three terms between 2003 and 2014, making him the only Nagaland Chief Minister to have served three consecutive terms.

Outgoing chief minister TR Zeliang resigned on Tuesday. Mr Zeliang's party, the Naga People's Front(NPF), had emerged the single largest party in the elections, winning 26 of the 60 assembly seats. The BJP-NDPP combine that bagged 30 seats has the support of one JD(U) legislator and an Independent.

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Yesterday, the National People's Party withdrew its support to the NDPP-BJP alliance. The NPP had contested the state elections in alliance with the Naga People's Front (NPF), but after the declaration of the results on March 3, it had decided to support the NDPP-BJP alliance.

The BJP had pulled out of an alliance with the NPF and chose to ally with Mr Rio's new party. Mr Rio said the alliance would be called "People's Democratic Alliance".