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Tokheho Yepthomi (born 1 April 1956) is an Indian politician from Nagaland. He is a five term Member of Legislative Assembly and former Cabinet Minister of Nagaland and two term Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha for Nagaland.

Early life and personal life

Tokheho Yepthomi was born and raised in Aghunato, Nagaland. He graduated from St. Edmund's College, Shillong and was an active student leader in his college days. He served as the President of Eastern Sumi Students Union before entering active politics as a member of the Indian National youth Congress.

Political career

Tokheho Yepthomi has been elected to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly for 5 terms from 1993 to 2018. He has served as a cabinet minister for Transport and Communication, Public Health Engineering Department and Public Works Department from 1995 to 2008 under former Chief Ministers S C Jamir and Neiphiu Rio.

He served as the Congress Legislature Party Leader and Leader of Opposition in the state assembly from 2010 to 2015.. While in opposition, he led a campaign for the dismissal of the then state Education Minister, Nyeiwang Konyak who was allegedly involved in financial irregularities of INR 5,000,000 in the department. He appealed to then Nagaland state governor Nikhil Kumar to accord sanction for prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

As T. R. Zeliang reshuffled and expanded his cabinet, Yepthomi joined was sworn as a cabinet minister while still being part of the Indian National Congress to form a government with no opposition in the state legislature. He was allotted the portfolio of Public Health Engineering, School Education and Parliament Affairs in May 2015. He was also given the portfolio of School Education.

After joining the newly formed Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), Yepthomi was selected as the consensus candidate for the People's Democratic Alliance (PDA) to contest by-election to the lone Lok Sabha seat from Nagaland in 2018. The seat was vacated by Neiphiu Rio to become the Chief Minister of Nagaland.

He was again selected as the consensus candidate for the PDA in the 2019 General Elections. In the closest election in recent history, Yepthomi won a second term in Lok Sabha by a margin of 16344 votes.

Term as Nagaland MP

Yepthomi was first elected in a by-election in 2018. In May 2020, the Lok Sabha speaker appointed Yepthomi as an associate member of the Delimitation Commission tasked with redrawing parliamentary and assembly constituencies for Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Nagaland. In the 2024 election, Yepthomi did not run for another term, and was succeeded by the Congress party.

References

1. "Opposition Cong campaign to oust Education Minister; meets Governor". No. Dimapur. The Morung Express. 13 August 2011. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
2. "'Team' Nagaland". The Statesman. 17 May 2015. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
3. "Tokheho Yepthomi of NDPP won the Lok Sabha seat in Nagaland". Nagaland Express. 23 May 2019. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
4. "MP Tokheho included in Delimitation Commission". MorungExpress. Retrieved 16 June 2023.

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