Kohima, June 16: The Opposition Congress today demanded resignation of all Nagaland People’s Front (NPF) legislators from the Nagaland Assembly, following the party’s rejection of the 16-Point Agreement that gave birth to the state.

“The NPF seems to base its hypothesis on the belief that had there been no state, Nagas might have achieved sovereignty by now,” said a PCC press release here today.

While pointing out that had there been no agreement and, in turn, no state, the NPF would not have been in power in the first place, the Congress urged NPF to muster the courage to directly reject the agreement and officially communicate that decision to the Centre.

The Congress also blamed the NPF for the Shillong Accord of 1975, through which members of the Naga National Council accepted the Constitution of India unconditionally. “In the history of Naga political struggle nothing was more damaging and damning than the Shillong Accord, the brainchild of the NPF,” the Congress said, demanding a public statement from the NPF regarding the accord.

The statement comes in the midst of a raging controversy in the state over formation of Nagaland in 1960 following the 16-Point Agreement between the Centre and Naga Peoples’ Convention (NPC).

The agreement was allegedly signed without taking consent of the Naga National Council (NNC), which was at war with the Centre over its demand for a sovereign nation. The then NPC consisted of mostly government employees and overground rebel leaders.

The NPF had been arguing that if the agreement was the final solution for the Naga people, then why had the Centre signed a ceasefire agreement with the NNC on September 6, 1964, and subsequently held Prime Minister-level talks with them? Moreover, they argued, another ceasefire was signed between the Centre and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (I-M) in 1997, again followed by Prime Minister-level talks.

It had categorically made its stand clear that statehood was not the final solution to the more than 60-year-old Naga political problem.

“We are happy with statehood, but not satisfied,” home minister Imkong L. Imchen had said, adding that members of the NPC were forced to sign the agreement.

He said some members, including former chief minister Vizol Angami, who was also a member of the NPC, had not signed it.

But the Opposition had slammed Imchen for “sounding like a rebel leader”.