Village Admin Bill turns into political football
SHILLONG: The KHADC is now a divided house on the proposed corrections suggested by the State Government on the KHAD (Village Administration) Bill, 2015 for facilitating its smooth passage.
The ruling coalition — People’s Democratic Forum (PDF) — want a special session to be convened to deliberate on the issue while the Opposition alliance in the Council –ARPA — wants to buy some more time before arriving at a final decision on the matter.
The division among the two groups, came to fore during the joint meeting of the MDCs of the two alliances which was held at the MDC Hostel here on Thursday.
Annoyed over the stand of ARPA on the matter, KHADC CEM Pynshngaiñ N Syiem said that they have failed to convince the members of the Opposition alliance on the need to convene the special session to deliberate on the minor corrections on the Bill as suggested by the Government.
“We wanted to convene the special session on Friday. Sadly the MDCs of ARPA want some more time to discuss the proposed corrections suggested by the Government,” Syiem told newsmen after the meeting.
Taking into the consideration the sentiments of the people at large and the urgency of the matter, Syiem said the members of ARPA could have studied the minor corrections on Thursday before deliberating the matter inside the House.
“We require the signature of at least 20 members to propose the special session of the Council. Since we do not have the numbers, we have decided to keep the proposal of holding the special session in abeyance,” Syiem said.
The PDF wants all the 30 MDCs to be part of this landmark exercise for facilitating the smooth passage of the Bill.
“We would like to announce before the public meeting called by the Synjuk Ki Rangbah Shong on May 30, on the steps taken by the Council by incorporating the minor correction to ensure that the Bill is passed without further delay. But we could not achieve this since ARPA did not back our proposal,” he said.
Meanwhile, ARPA chairman Metbah Lyngdoh said that the members of the Opposition coalition need more time to study the minor corrections as suggested by the State Government since the copy of the Bill with notings from the Government was provided to them only at the meeting. Lyngdoh said there are 17 minor corrections and therefore ARPA needs adequate time to study the corrections before taking a final call.
Lyngdoh also informed that some MDCs of ARPA could not attend Thursday’s meeting since they were in their constituencies.
“We cannot take a decision without taking them into confidence. We will convene a meeting once all the MDCs of ARPA are in station,” Metbah Lyngdoh said adding that they too agree that the issue needs to be resolved at the earliest. “We would not have any problems if the Government had passed the bill as submitted by the Council. But since the Government wanted several corrections in the Bill we cannot blindly endorse it without going into the merits and demerits of the corrected version of the Bill,” Lyngdoh added.
He said that ARPA would seek expert legal opinion on the matter and expedite the process.
Meanwhile, the KHADC Executive Committee have endorsed that the CEM should find out the best possible options to facilitate the passing of the Bill after ARPA rejected the proposal to convene the special session.
“I will exercise my mind on the options available to see that the matter is disposed off at the earliest,” Syiem said.
When asked if there are provisions for the EC to go ahead with this issue without convening the special session, he said that as of now, he could not say if the EC can on its own make the minor corrections without seeking the approval of the House.
“We will think along these lines to ensure that there is no further delay,” the KHADC CEM added.
He however expressed surprise at the reluctance of ARPA to agree to a special session since they too are also in favour of passing the Bill at the earliest.
“I can only conclude that ARPA has failed to umderstand the urgency of the matter. The general public expects the Council to complete the exercise as soon as possible but the attitude of ARPA will put a big question mark on the seriousness of the Council to pass the bill,” Syiem added.