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DIMAPUR — Independent candidate for Nagaland’s lone Parliamentary Constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, Hayithung Tungoe Lotha, said that he would fight for the demand of the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO) for a Frontier Nagaland Territory (FNT) in the parliament if he is elected.
In a press release issued on Saturday, Lotha said the ENPO’s demand is ‘genuine’ as the region has been neglected ‘socially, economically and developmentally’ for the past six decades since the attainment of Nagaland statehood in 1963.
“My main No. 1 political strategy shall be to pressure and force the central government to immediately accord and grant the Frontier Nagaland Territory (FNT) with full political, financial and administrative autonomy and appointment of a chief-executive councilor (CEC) equivalent to the rank of chief minister in a state directly reporting to Governor’s office without any other official intermediary.
“The FNT should be directly under the central government funding pattern and directly monitored and supervised by the central government,” he said.
He has accused the state government of playing delay politics in granting FNT to the eastern Nagas.
Meanwhile, Lotha appealed to the eastern Nagaland brothers and sisters to ‘vigorously’ check and stop some vested interest leaders from eastern Nagaland, who may be interested only after money, power and material wealth.
He went on to state that he is willing to embark on ‘fast-unto-death till FNT is granted by the central government’ and “ready to sacrifice my very life” for the people in eastern region of the state.