SHILLONG: While the NPP-led MDA government is yet to get a clear indication from the Union government about getting total exemption from the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the ruling MLAs in the state are keen on ensuring that not only the Sixth Schedule areas but the entire state is exempted from the Act.
Cabinet Minister and People’s Democratic Front (PDF) MLA Hamlet Dohling said, “We are clear we want full exemption from the Act. Though the Centre has exempted 97 per cent area of the state, we are still unhappy.”
He is hopeful that Union Home Minister Amit Shah in the next meeting with the Meghalaya government would grant full exemption to the state from the purview of the Act.
UDP MLA and Cabinet Minister Kyrmen Shylla said, “I am always with the public as I am a public representative.”
He said that in fact all the MLAs are with the public in opposing CAA and they will not go against the voice of the people.
“What the public is asking is genuine and hence I am with them,” Shylla said.
Independent MLA and chairman of the State Planning Board, Lambor Malngiang, while reiterating his opposition to the Act, said that what the Union government has given to the states of Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur should now be awarded to Meghalaya as well.
Echoing similar views that there should be total exemption for Meghalaya from the CAA, he added that the states Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur, have article 371A and they were further given ILP and now Meghalaya too should be given ILP by the Centre.
NPP MLA from Phulbari SG Esmatur Mominin said that the stand of the party on the Act has been the same and it has never changed.
“The NPP was against CAA yesterday and we are against it even today,” he said while reiterating his views for full exemption of Meghalaya from the purview of the Act which has been opposed by the people of the region.
