GUWAHATI: The influential tribal body Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO) has asked the Nagaland government to send its comment regarding the “Frontier Nagaland Territory” (FNT) to the central government by October 31.
The Centre had earlier asked the Neiphiu Rio government to give its comment on the highlights of a memorandum of settlement (MoS) draft concerning FNT.
The ENPO decided to write to the state government following a coordination and consultative meeting with various tribal organisations in eastern Nagaland’s Mon town on Friday.
This is the third time in past two months that it has written to the state government seeking its views on the issue. In the second letter, issued on September 14, the ENPO urged the government to take the matter seriously and uphold the spirit of collective responsibility as outlined in Article 164 (2) of the Constitution of India while sharing its views on the MoS draft.
On December 18 last year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah handed over the highlights of the draft MoS with ENPO on FNT to the Nagaland government for its comment at the earliest.
“However, the issue is being stalemated till date for reasons best known to the state government,” the ENPO said.
The tribal organisations of eastern Nagaland will hold another meeting on November 1 to discuss further course of actions.
The ENPO, which is the apex tribal organisation of eastern Nagaland comprising six districts such as Kiphire, Longleng, Mon, Noklak, Shamator and Tuensang, has been for the past few years spearheading a “people’s movement” for Frontier Nagaland Territory. The demand stems from eastern Nagaland’s alleged backwardness.
When Nagaland last year marked its 60th statehood day with the celebration of the Hornbill Festival, people from eastern Nagaland boycotted the event as the demand continued to hang fire.
They had also boycotted this year’s Lok Sabha elections. Nagaland has 60 Assembly seats and 20 of them are in these six districts.