Neiphiu meet Chidambaram over ENPO's demand
Source: The Sangai Express / Newmai News Network
Dimapur, August 09 2011:
Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio met Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram in New Delhi this evening over the Eastern Naga People's Organisation (ENPO)'s demand for the creation of a separate state.
Neiphiu Rio's media secretary Abu Metha informed Newmai News Network this evening that the chief minister of Nagaland has presented the state cabinet's decision over the ENPO's demand to P Chidabaram today.
A separate source said that Neiphiu Rio met P Chidambaram at around 7 pm today in New Delhi.
Mentionably, the demand of the Eastern Naga People's Organisation (ENPO) for a separate state by bifurcating Nagaland has been keeping Neiphiu Rio and his cabinet ministers sleepless nights.
The Neiphiu Rio led Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) government in trying to address this issue seems to have run out of potentiality.
For the last several months, the Eastern Naga People's Organisation (ENPO) has been pressing for a separate statehood christened as "Frontier Nagaland" by bifurcating Nagaland state.
The four eastern districts of Nagaland�Longleng, Mon, Kiphire and Tuensang�comprised the proposed "Frontier Nagaland" demanded by the ENPO.
The main reason for the ENPO's move has been a 'step-motherly' treatment by the Nagaland government for a long time.
The ENPO has been lamenting that the successive Nagaland governments have failed to bring any economic development in the four districts.
In response to this, the Neiphiu Rio government after having had taken few months of studying the ENPO's demand has come up with an offer in the form of Autonomous District Council under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
The ENPO out rightly rejected the offer.
"We will not accept anything less than a statehood," asserted the ENPO.
It may not be wrong to say that the ENPO's demand also gives some botheration to the NSCN-IM leadership.
Such a demand to bifurcate Nagaland state has come in the face of NSCN-IM's campaign for the integration of all Naga inhabited areas under one administrative unit.