UDP: Give due regards to Puja celebration

SHILLONG, SEPT 30: Even as the United Democratic Party (UDP) on Monday appealed to the pro-Inner Line Permit (ILP) activists and ngos to give due regards to the sensibility of those celebrating the Durga Puja while agitating, it also dared chief minister Mukul Sangma to provide evidence of the allegation he made that the regional political parties and the ngos had a nexus on the ILP issue.

Briefing reporters after the meeting of the UDP and later of the Meghalaya Parliamentary Forum (MPF)- a conglomerate of the opposition parties-  UDP working president and MPF spokesman Paul Lyngdoh said that the UDP resolution has also appealed to the ngos to give due regards to the religious sensibility of those celebrating the Durga Puja while agitating for the introduction of the ILP.

Lyngdoh also said that the UDP dared chief minister Mukul Sangma to provide sufficient evidences to prove his allegations that there is a nexus between regional political parties and pro ILP activists. Failure to provide evidence will force the UDP to take up the matter on the floor of the assembly on October 4, he informed.

Lyngdoh wondered how can Sangma who had constituted the High Level Committee on Influx headed by the then deputy chief minister Bindo M Lanong to examine the feasibility on whether ILP can or cannot be implemented do a complete “U” turn by now saying that the implementation of the ILP was out of question.

The UDP resolution also said that while it endorses the demand on the need for implementing the ILP in a form that will suit the need of the state, Lyngdoh informed that the party also appeals to all concerned to abjure from acts of violence and destruction to public as well as private properties.

Lyngdoh also informed that the UDP strongly appeals to the police to refrain from random arrests and subjecting innocent citizens to undue harassment.

                                     Adjournment motion on ILP

Meanwhile the opposition forum styled as the Meghalaya People’s Forum (MPF) of which the UDP is part will move for an ‘adjournment motion’ to discuss only the ILP issue in the forthcoming assembly session.

Lyngdoh said,“We have move for an ‘adjournment motion’ that the house discuses nothing but on the issue of ILP on the first day of the session.” He said the assembly has been urged to suspend all businesses and allow to discuss the ILP on the floor of the assembly on the first day of the assembly session.

The MPF also propose to discuss the teachers’ plight, and law and order situation in Garo hills and other burning issues in the state.- By Our Reporter