Shillong ( Meghalaya ), Feb 20 : While addressing a press conference on Monday here , MP Gaurav Gogoi said on Sunday NEDA Convenor & CM Assam Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma admitted that despite being a part of the alliance NPP led MDA government – their government in Meghalaya had failed to deliver and questioned where the money meant for development had vanished. He lamented that medical colleges in Shillong and Tura did not see the light of day as promised. He also admitted that the alliance government even failed to host the national games.
The people of Meghalaya want to know why Dr. Sarma was silent and did not take up these issues as NEDA convenor before elections? Everybody is aware how the Government was formed in Meghalaya with BJP playing an important role as a broker to form the post poll alliance. Everybody is aware how close Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma is with CM Conrad Sangma and how he was made CM. Now Dr. Sarma cannot absolve himself of the responsibility of denying the people of Meghalaya a government that should have been committed to work for the people of Meghalaya.
He cannot now blame the NPP led MDA Government alone for not fulfilling its promises. He cannot absolve his party, the BJP from the corruption carried out by the MDA. Wasn’ t BJP MLAs Shanbor Shullai and A L Hek cabinet Ministers in the MDA? The Congress party would like to tell Dr. Sarma to drop all this drama to fool the people of Meghalaya.
If Meghalaya Government is a failure and incompetent, then he and his party are equally responsible for this failure.Moreover, we cannot agree more with Dr. Sarma when he calls people who leave their original parties as unstable. We have seen how the Government of Assam has become with communal unrest on the rise, with the displacement of genuine people on encroachment drives, with disruption of families in the name of action against child marriages, with increasing encounter deaths, with increasing crimes against women and many more. People know how stable the BJP Government of Assam has become when compared with the Tarun Gogoi led Congress Government.
Dr Sarma has claimed that there has not been a single incident in Assam that has affected the religious sentiments of Christian people in his state. On the contrary news reports have shown increasing intolerance towards minorities – Muslims and Christians alike. There have been instances of church demolition in Chirang in BTAD area of Assam Bhutan border by BJP Govt. This anti-Christian attitude of the BJP has increased manifold in Assam as in rest of India
Recently Janajati Dharma Sanskriti Suraksha Manch in Assam (an organisation backed by RSS) has demanded the removal of the Scheduled Tribe Christians. This is against the spirit of respecting the indigenous ethnic origin of the Scheduled Tribes of the North East, especially the Christian community in Meghalaya and Nagaland. It also demonstrates the compelling need of BJP to repeatedly invoke their anti-Christian mentality.
Religious profiling and harassment of the Christian community in Majuli, Assam is further evidence of the mistreatment of the minority communities by BJP. In Assam the Police Special Branch SP’s sent out “secret” letters to all SPs in the districts seeking information on churches and religious conversion in the region. This is a clear attempt at identifying and targeting Christians in the region.Most recently on February 14 in Narmadapuram in Madhya Pradesh, a church was vandalized.
Just a few months after the MDA government was sworn in, Shillong was rocked by violence and the capital city was under curfew after clashes erupted in the Punjabi lane also known as Sweepers colony,In Feb-March 2020, there were violence in Ichamati in Shella constituency that left several dead and injured, The killing of Cheristerfield Thangkhiew on 13 th August 2021 because another flashpoint and Shillong was engulfed in flames again. The killing of former leader of the banned militant outfit HNLC, in a botched police operation, sparked massive protests in Shillong and caused a massive law and order situation.
In October 2022 the unemployment rally in Shillong turned violent. And who can forget the tragic incident which happened on 22 nd November 2022, in the border village of Mukroh, when 5 innocent villagers were killed in police firing.
Since 2018 there have been many instances of drug busts in Meghalaya. In September 2022 Police initially seized 13.54 gm of Heroin, 153 vials, three mobile phones and local taxi from their possession, and on further probe also arrested two women involved in the drug nexus. In the last five years we have witnessed many drug busts of such a nature which exposes the huge network of drug movement going on in the State.
While drug trafficking is a serious law and order issue addiction to drugs has destroyed families across Meghalaya. With an estimated 2.5 lakh drug users in a state where the population is only 30 lakh the number of families impacted is astonishing. Proximity to the golden triangle makes it susceptible for drugs trade and hence the government needed to be extra vigilant to curb the trade. With all the MDA alliance partners busy negotiating corrupt deals, governance had taken a backseat resulting in drug mafia spreading its tentacles in all parts of the state the number of drug addicts has reached alarming proportions.
In order to make Meghalaya drug free, we will adopt a policy of zero tolerance towards drug peddlers and also open up 50 de-addiction and drug counselling centres state-wide.
The Chief Minister today himself has accepted the failure of law-and-order in the state by his government. Can the people of Meghalaya repose their faith in a government which itself accepts that it cannot handle law and order?
Conrad Sangma is a puppet of Dr. Sarma and he in turn is controlled by Amit Shah in Delhi. That’s why Dr. Sarma considers Amit Shah to be the PM and not Mr. Modi which he publicly announced in public meetings.
The statement of CM Conrad Sangma lamenting about the betrayal of the MDA partners is nothing but political drama to hoodwink the people of Meghalaya. The fact that the MDA partners are turning on each other indicates that they can smell their failure in the upcoming elections.
The NPP -BJP MDA alliance partners are masters in the act of fooling the people of Meghalaya with their accusations and counter accusations against each other just before elections. They were hand in glove in the Great Meghalaya Loot.
The people of Meghalaya are aware and politically conscious to see through this charade and will give a befitting reply on election say to this sinister alliance. The people of Meghalaya need a government run from Shillong and not from Dispur or Nagpur.
