SHILLONG: The Congress party may have bungled in the selection of candidates for the GHADC polls which is one of the reasons for the poor performance of the party in the polls, AICC general secretary in charge Meghalaya, V. Narayanasamy, observed on Sunday.
The AICC leader, who is in Shillong along with his deputy Vijay Laxmi Sadho, however, asserted that the GHADC polls would not have any impact on the 2018 Assembly elections in the State. “It was surprising that the Congress could not do better in the GHADC polls as we had expected more seats,” Narayanasamy said.
According to the AICC leader, there were a lot of issues involved which led to the poll debacle as far as Congress is concerned and one of them is the inability of voters to go to polling booths due to the bandh called by the protestors and underground elements.
He made it clear that anti-incumbency was not the reason for the poor performance of the party in the GHADC election.
“We will analyze the reasons for the setback for the party in the GHADC polls in tomorrow’s Congress co-ordination committee meeting so that corrective measures can be taken,” he added.
‘Modi led NDA Govt ignoring NE’
The AICC general secretary criticized the Prime Minister and the BJP led NDA government at the Centre for not restoring the special category status and other grants to the North East which were earlier provided by the Congress led UPA.
“The NDA government has neglected the North East. The Government of India is not showing interest in developing the NE. They are doing just the opposite of what the UPA was providing to the people of NE,” Narayanasamy told reporters here on Sunday.
He said that the NDA removed the special category status for the NE while the previous UPA had provided 90% grants in budgets and the same percentage was also provided for central schemes and special plan schemes. Moreover, several packages were announced for the NE during the UPA regime.
Though the chief ministers of the Northeastern states irrespective of party affiliations had sought appointment with the Prime Minister for the last five months, they could not meet Narendra Modi to discuss the issue of withdrawal of grants to the region.
According to the AICC leader, when NDA came to power all the schemes meant for NE were scrapped and the special category status was removed. Moreover the 90% grants meant for the region was brought down to 30%.
“The people are made to suffer and there is a sinister design on the part of the BJP government as infrastructure, healthcare, tribal affairs development and small scale industries in the NE have suffered due to the anti-people stand of the Centre,” Narayanasamy said, while adding that the BJP did not have knowledge about the tribal culture in the NE even though the Centre wants to treat North East at par with the rest of India.
