By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma on Sunday met new Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in New Delhi and urged him to expedite the constitution of a Boundary Commission to ‘re-examine and re-define the inter-state boundary between Meghalaya and Assam’.
Informing the Union Home Minister that a resolution adopted for constitution of the Boundary Commission in the Meghalaya Assembly was forwarded to the Ministry in April 2011, Dr Sangma said that ‘no feedback has been received from the Ministry of Home Affairs so far in the matter’.
In a letter that he handed over to the Union Home Minister, Dr Sangma said, “There have been serious differences between Assam and Meghalaya on the matter of inter-state boundary ever since the state of Meghalaya came into existence.”
The Chief Minister said that various efforts have been made to find an amicable solution to this vexed issue but without any tangible outcome. “This has caused immense hardship to the people living along the border and has also led to violent incidents at times,” he further added in the letter.
Dr Sangma informed Shinde that since no mutually acceptable solution has emerged through bilateral efforts made so far, a resolution was passed by the Meghalaya Assembly in the last Budget session. It unanimously resolved that the ‘Government of India be moved to constitute a Boundary Commission to re-examine and re-define the boundary between Meghalaya and Assam acceptable to both the states having regard to the Constitutional provisions while giving due weightage to historical, ethnic and linguistic linkages’.
Dr Sangma urged the Home Minister to constitute the Boundary Commission on ‘priority so that a lasting solution to this long pending problem can be found’.
The borders of the two states have witnessed a spate of unrests in recent past and the Chief Minister said he wanted an expeditious resolution to this issue.