KOHIMA, July 29: The Nagaland government will hold a cabinet-level meeting on Wednesday to deliberate on the Centre’s directive to resolve pending issues related to the demand for creation of Frontier Nagaland Territory, Deputy Chief Minister Yanthungo Patton said.
The development follows the third Tripartite High-Level Committee meeting held on July 23 in New Delhi, attended by officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the Nagaland government, and representatives of the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO), which has been demanding separate statehood since 2010.
“We have a cabinet meeting tomorrow, and we will discuss the matter there. We shall also discuss with the ENPO leaders tomorrow,” Patton told reporters here on the sidelines of an official programme.
Related Posts:
During the New Delhi meeting, several contentious issues were reportedly resolved, barring a few pending ones from the Nagaland government side, ENPO had said in a statement on July 25.
The Centre subsequently directed the state government to resolve the pending issues within a fortnight, it said.
ENPO, the apex organisation representing eight tribes across six districts – Mon, Tuensang, Longleng, Kiphire, Noklak, and Shamator – has been demanding separate statehood since 2010, citing “decades of neglect in governance and development”.
In April, the organisation had announced a temporary suspension of its statehood demand and agreed to the Centre’s proposal for a certain degree of autonomy under the Frontier Nagaland Territory (FNT) framework. (PTI)
