Political parties meet today inconclusive

SHILLONG, JAN 20: The all political parties meeting convened by chief minister Mukul Sangma on Tuesday to discussed the proposed amendment of the Sixth Schedule to the Indian Constitution for increasing the seats in the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) and the role of its nominated members remain inconclusive as the opposition sought time to submit their views.

Briefing reporters after the meeting chief minister Mukul Sangma said, “They (political parties) sought for time on the issue relating to whether the role of nominated members should be equivalent to the elected members and whether they should have the voting rights like the elected members.”

Informing that all political parties had the same opinion Sangma said the meeting will be convened once again in about 8-9 days or before the month’s end to reach a unanimous decision on the issue. He said the purpose of convening the meeting by the state government was to take the views and opinions of all the political parties to ensure completion of the peace process in Garo hills after ANVC and ANVC-B were disbanded as per the agreement signed with the centre and state governments.

The agreement proposed increase of GHADC seats to 40 which include 35 elected members and five nominated members.

Sangma informed that the proposed amendment will be placed before the upcoming parliamentary and state government must response to the communication from the union government the centre is already in advance stage. He said after the process is completed then the GHADC election in the new delimitated seats can take place.

Sangma said the state government invited all the political parties, stakeholders and traditional institutions to discussed and deliberated on the issue to enable the government to come up with a comprehensive views to be submitted to the union government.

Sangma said the views of the other political parties during Tuesday’s meeting was productive and said they said that they are with the government in the peace process and have extended their  good will and support to the government.

Sangma, however, informed that as the draft amendment of the sixth schedule by the union government has not been send to the state government therefore the state government cannot finalise its decision on the issue. He said, “We have taken it up with centre so that we get the draft bill copy.

Sangma also revealed that the whole peace process in Garo hills took a long time there have been instances of some militant leaders deserting their parent organization and floating new militant outfits.

Sangma said as now the state government has been able to zero down on the Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) it would like to complete the peace process at the earliest. He said, “This in itself can be taken as a development which can be used as a positive message for all other misguided youths who are  part of other organizations to understand the futility of continuing with waging war against people and the state…this is our bottom line.”

Sangma also informed that the provision of the Agreed Text Settlement signed with the ANVC and ANVC.B will also be extended to the other two ADCs – KHADC and JHADC.

However the opposition parties had expressed their concerns during the meeting as the state government had already submitted its views on the proposed amendment of the Sixth Schedule to the Indian Constitution without taking them into consideration.

UDP president Donkupar Roy said, “I had questioned the chief minister on this and he said that the government had already submitted its views to the centre. The proposal came from MHA and state government had expressed its views on January 8 and now they want the views of all the political parties.”

Roy however informed that the chief minister has promised that the views of all the political parties will be combined together and the government will again send its views and suggestions to the centre as some views like the size of the council in KHADC and JHADC and role of nominated members are important. – By Our Reporter