Friday’s ILP pandemonium in assembly

SHILLONG, OCT 4: The opening day of the autumn session of the Meghalaya assembly on Friday was marked with pandemonium as the opposition Meghalaya Parliamentary Forum (MPF) not only staged a walkout but banged the tables and even ghearoed the assembly speaker AT Mondal after he disallowed admission of the adjournment motion for discussing the Inner Line Permit (ILP) to curb illegal immigration and the influx into the state.

Mondal had received the request for the adjournment motion on Thursday that sought to discuss the ongoing agitation by ngos demanding implementation of the ILP regime, its fallout that disrupted normal life and worsening law and order problem for over a month.

Mondal reasoned with the agitated opposition members led by the MPF leader and UDP president Donkupar Roy and UDP working president Paul Lyngdoh as he had already admitted a starred question and a resolution on the issue that will be taken up on Tuesday the opposition members will get ample opportunity to discuss the “burning issue”. He also informed that a separate resolution by Garo National Council (GNC) legislator Clifford Marak seeking to discuss creation of a Garo state will also be discussed on the same day.

The acrimony within the august house reached a boiling point when Clifford Marak accused the speaker of being ‘partisan’, which was promptly refuted by Mondal. The speaker made it amply clear that he was “interpreting the law and not taking sides”.

As soon as the question hour was over, Donkupar Roy and Paul Lyngdoh insisted that the speaker should admit the adjournment motion. Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) legislator Ardent Basaiawmoit even offered to withdraw his resolution on ILP slated to be taken up on Tuesday to facilitate the admission of the adjournment motion.  Mondal however reminded Basaiawmoit that he would have to wait till Tuesday day if he wanted to withdraw the motion.

Mondal was seen trying his best to mollify the agitated opposition members by asserting that the  “ office of the Speaker”  is not shying away allowing discussion on this (ILP) burning issue.

Opposition members even went up to the Speaker’s podium and shockingly some of them continuously banged on his table and even tried  to mount the hallowed podium.

Ruling party member and government chief whip Ronnie V Lyngdoh, while supporting the speaker’s for not  admitting the adjournment motion that sought to discuss the ILP, said, “We are held to ransom (by the pro-ILP activists) outside and now we are held to ransom inside the house too.”

To bring back normalcy inside the august house Mondal adjourned the house for twenty-five minutes, but belligerent opposition members surrounded the speaker once the house reassembled and begun shouting slogans demanding discussion on ILP and law and order.

The speaker, however, went about the day’s business of the house protected by the assembly marshals.

While chief minister Mukul Sangma rose up to make obituary references, he assured that the government was “very receptive to all proposals from the opposition” and assured that there would be enough time to take up all the issues put forth by the opposition.

Sangma even pleaded with the opposition to maintain the decorum of the august house and not to create an bad precedence, which was “never seen in the house.

However even as Sangma was making obituary references and paying obeisance to the departed souls the entire opposition staged a walkout of the house.- By Our Reporter