Nagaland: Man from Angami hills on 7th heaven

Nagaland’s longest-serving chief minister Neiphiu Rio is back in the saddle for his fifth term, reinforcing his status as the one constant axis of the region’s coalition politics now headlined by BJP. That he has done so without fuss — the BJP-NDPP combine’s victory was never in doubt — is a tribute to the resilience and acceptability of the Purulia and Darjeeling-educated politician from Tuophema village in the Angami hills.

Born on November 11, 1950, Rio became the only Naga CM to serve three consecutive terms (2003–08, 2008–3and 2013–14) before being elected as an MP in 2024. His parliamentary stint was cut short when he chose to return to state politics just before the 2018 polls, paving the way for a fourth term as CM, this time with BJP as his ally. Rio had quit the Nagaland People’s Front (NPF), which he had formed after deserting Congress in 2002, just before the elections to join the newly floated NDPP and align with the saffron party. He became the new party’s CM face and won the Northern Angami II seat uncontested after his lone rival Chupfuo Angami of NPF withdrew his nomination.
It was the second time that Rio had won an assembly election uncontested. In 1998, he won Northern Angami II uncontested as a Congress nominee amid a poll boycott call. His seventh victory from the seat on Thursday is also his biggest. Rio received 17,045 votes against his Congress rival Seyievilie Sachu's 1,221, constituting over 92% of the votes polled.

Rio’s road to political dominance had started in 1989, when he was first elected to the assembly on a Congress ticket. He became the minister for sports and school education and, later, minister for higher and technical education and art and culture.

His first stint as CM came in 2003, when he pulled the carpet from under his original party Congress just when it was going strong under veteran SC Jamir. That halted Congress’s 10-year run in the state.