SHILLONG: Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said the government is on the same page with the organisations in their demand for implementation of Inner Line Permit (ILP).
After a meeting attended by different organisations, including religious leaders and heads of traditional institutions, Tynsong told reporters that the stakeholders expressed gratitude to the state government for being on the same page with them on the demand to implement ILP.
To restore normalcy and peace in the state, he said the Chief Minister has appealed to all social organisations to refrain from organising any kind of public meeting or rally since the people are in a festive mood and asked them to cooperate and work together with the state government to bring normalcy as early as possible.
“This is Christmas time. Let normalcy be in place and let people focus in celebrating Christmas”, he added.
As for the response of the organisations, he said that they endorsed the decision taken by the government and a few suggestions were made by them and they were noted down by the government.
“After passing the resolution, we should aggressively follow it up with the government of India. These suggestions were noted down by the government very seriously”, he said.
“From Day 1, the state government said no to CAB and till today, we are on the same page. Though there is no CAA in the 97 per cent of Meghalaya, we want to make sure that in the remaining 3 per cent, there should not be any CAA. That means no CAA in the entire state of Meghalaya”, he said.
Commenting on the opinion of former Nongkrem MLA Ardent Basaiawmoit, Tynsong said that Basaiawmoit being a tall leader of the state should update himself and not to create confusion.
Tynsong said the latest notification from the Centre was on December 11 and hence the state government is bound to go back to the Centre for implementation of ILP in the same form as what the Centre did to Manipur.
MRSSA strengthened
As for the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act (MRSSA), Tynsong said that it was already in place since 2016 and a few amendments were made recently and it was approved by the cabinet in the form of ordinance which is still lying in Raj Bhavan.
“In the amendment made, we made it more or less just like ILP. But we cannot comment anything on this since we are yet to get the assent of the governor”, he said.
He said the NGO leaders have impressed upon the government to strengthen the existing form of the Residents Act.
“We have already constituted the District Task Force and the respective DCs are the chairpersons of the District Task Force. The political department will instruct all the district task forces to be more proactive as far as the issue of implementation of Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act is concerned,” he said.
