Chongshen Mongkosungkum Chang. (Morung File Photo)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | October 12
Nagaland Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change and Justice & Law, Chongshen Mongkosungkum Chang, popularly known as CM Chang, today passed away at the Naga Hospital Kohima Authority (NHAK).
He is 77 and survived by his wife and 5 sons and 5 daughters, and grand children.
Initial report indicated that the minister was undergoing treatment at the NHAK for some time, but the cause of the death was not immediately known. More details are awaited.
Chang was representing 51 Noksen Assembly Constituency in Tuensang district in the Nagaland Legislative Assembly under the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) since 2018.
A civil servant before joining active politics, Chang took a voluntary retirement as Secretary in the Department of Youth Resources and Sports to contest his first NLA election in 2003.
Chang lost the contest to his first-two election in 2003 and 2008 before finding success in the national platform when he was elected as the lone Member of Parliament from Nagaland in the 15th Lok Sabha with the Naga People’s Front Party in 2009.
In 2013, he returned to the State and won the Noksen Assembly seat and held the portfolio of Education in the last NPF-led government.
He was NPF vice president from 2003 before shifting gear and joining NDPP, under which he retained his assembly seat in 2018 election.
According to members’ profile of Fifteenth Lok Sabha, Chang, who was born on April 1, 1943 in Noksen. He completed his Bachelor of Arts from St Edmund's College, North Eastern Hills University in 1969.
Before his professional life, he served as the President of Noksen Village Student`s Union 1960-62 and Chang Student`s Conference 1962-64.
Chang entered the Nagaland Civil Service as an Extra Asst. Commissioner (Class-I Gazetted) in 1979. As a civil servant, he served as Sub Divisonal Officer (Civil), Tuli, 1983; Deputy Secretary in the department of Youth-Resources & Sports, Kohima, 1989; Additonal Dy. Commissioner, Dimapur, 1990; Deputy Secretry, Home Department, 1993; Joint Chief Electoral Officer, Kohima, 1994; Director on deputation in the Department of Youth Resources & Sport, Kohima; Deputy Commissioner, Wokha, 1997 and Additional Secretary, Department of Youth-Resources & Sports, 1998.
He was later promoted to the post of Secretary, DYRS in 1998 and inducted into IAS in 1999.
During the intervening period, he served as president of Chang Gazetted Officer`s Association 1991-96; Tuensang-Mon Gazetted Officer`s Association 1993-96; and Nagaland Civil Service Association 1994-96.
