SHILLONG: There is resentment over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to skip Meghalaya even as he visited four neighbouring states of the North East.
Modi on Monday successfully completed his tour to Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura and interacted with the Chief Ministers of the respective states, but skipped Meghalaya though he had reasons aplenty to pay a historic visit to Garo Hills on November 30 to flag off Meghalaya’s first-ever passenger train from Mendipathar in North Garo Hills.
Questions are doing the rounds on why the Prime Minister did not visit Mendipathar to inaugurate the train service, but preferred to flag off the first train digitally from Maligaon, Assam.
When the question was asked last week, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said that since there were simultaneous programmes – first the flagging of the Mendipathar train and subsequently laying the foundation stone of broad gauge conversion of Bhairabi-Sairang line in Mizoram – the Prime Minister chose to officiate both functions digitally.
In the past, the Chief Minister had been critical of Modi during the conference of NRIs in January this year by stating that for the better days ahead, the foundation of the country was laid by the Congress leaders who had great visions.
Moreover, during the election campaign for Lok Sabha polls, the Chief Minister had said that Modi would not become the Prime Minister due to his ‘fundamentalist’ background.
However, the Chief Minister, later, said that during elections political parties are forced to pursue their own political ideology and principles based on which one seeks the support and mandate of the people.
The Opposition, however, is not happy over the manner in which the flagging off the first train from Meghalaya was carried out.
“Though people of Garo Hills welcomed the rail service, everyone felt that it would have been a completely different experience had the Prime Minister inaugurated the train service physically,” NPP legislator James Sangma said on Tuesday. According to James, there is a feeling among the people that the State Government did not try its best to request the Prime Minister to come to Meghalaya.
James, who was present at Mendipathar when the Prime Minister digitally flagged off the train from Maligaon, said that the Prime Minister might have had a busy schedule. “People would have been happier if he had visited Garo Hills, but at the same time the people understand that he is a busy person,” James said.
He said that the Opposition had no role in the matter as the Government of the day was involved in the planning process.
BJP Meghalaya Unit general secretary Dipayan Chakraborty said that the State BJP was also surprised when they came to know that the Prime Minister would not visit Meghalaya for the inauguration of the rail service.
“We do not know whether the Chief Minister invited the Prime Minister or not to visit Meghalaya or is it because of the law and order problem in Garo Hills that the Prime Minister’s Office did not recommend Modi’s visit to Meghalaya,” Chakraborty said, adding that the Chief Minister was the best man to answer these questions.
