National leader of National People’s Party (NPP) and former Manipur Health Minister Phungzathang Tonsing passed away at the Apollo Hospital in New Delhi at around 7.30 pm on Wednesday night, sources available in Imphal said.
He was 79. He is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.
According to sources, former minister Tonsing was re-admitted at the Apollo Hospital in the national capital two weeks ago for medical treatment.
His body is expected to be brought back on Thursday for performing last rites at his Salem house in Imphal.
A bachelor degree holder social worker Tonsing had once worked as a headmaster of Bungpilon Junior High School at his birth place Bungpilon village under Thanlon sub-division in Chaurachandpur district before joining the field of politics.
Tonsing who joined Congress in 1972 by winning district council polls and later elected on a Congress ticket as an MLA for the first time from Thanlon constituency in 1980.
Since then he was elected for six times-three times representing Thanlon till 1990 and three times representing Churachandpur all on Congress tickets till 2012. He had been minister six times between 1980 to 2012.
As a minister for 30 years, he held various portfolios including Health, Public Health Engineering, Information and Public Relations, Transport, Irrigation and Flood Control, Power, Tribal Development and Science Technology etc.
He was also the president of Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee from 1995-1998.
He resigned from the primary membership of Congress party prior to last Assembly polls and joined the National People’s Party (NPP) in February 2017 to contest in the 2017 Assembly polls. But he lost the polls.
