By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: South Shillong legislator Sanbor Shullai has denied allegations of MLA fund misuse levelled against him by a group of residents of Kynjat Phutbol based on RTI findings.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Shullai said the 30,000 electorate in his constituency are happy with his work.
Referring to Banri Kupar Wahlang, who has accused Shullai of misappropriating Rs 2.52 crore under the Special Urban Welfare Programme, and others as a ‘Political RTI Contractual Agency’, the MLA said they were jealous and enemies of the voters.
“Wahlang was a candidate whom we had defeated in all the elections, including MDC, and he was outrightly rejected by the people of the constituency. Since he has nothing else to do he has come out with this Political RTI Contractual Agency and its members, who are his relatives,” he said.
The RTI activist had alleged that instead of creating “useful public assets”, Shullai has procured utensils, dinner sets and other trivial items of individual use with the government fund “in a manner that can only be described as large scale of siphoning off public money”.
In his defense, the NCP leader said the Monitoring Cum Implementation Committee (MCIC) purchased the items with an aim to uplift the living standard of the poor in the constituency.
To strengthen his argument, Shullai mentioned about the two women, D Passah and V Marbaniang, who are in Wahlang’s group, and said their family members too are beneficiaries of the MLA scheme despite not being his supporters.
“I am shocked to know that they (Passah and Marbaniang) have left Sounder Cajee (now a BJP member) and joined the new agency led by Wahlang, who was an HSPDP candidate,” he added.
Terming the allegations as baseless, fabricated and politically motivated, the MLA recalled that the same group had adopted a similar tactic only three and a half months before the 2013 elections to malign his and MCIC’s image.
Before the last elections, Wahlang filed an FIR against Shullai for allegedly misusing the Seng Khasi “sacred flag”, which according to the MLA was set aside by a court and rejected by the electorate of South Shillong.
“I am confident that the same thing will be repeated. All these allegations will be forfeited as the wise electorate have already decided to give them a good lesson in the upcoming elections because it’s all political motivated,” he added.
Shullai also added that as per the guidelines, there was no restriction for an MLA and his monitoring committee to take up works and distribute materials among the poor, schools, sports clubs, puja committees and dorbar shnongs.
There were also allegations that MCIC purchased all items from a supplier named K Lynrah from Sohra. Wahlang had demanded that the MLA disclose the true identity and status of the supplier.
Responding to a query, Shullai said there is no restriction for the MLA to allot the contract to any registered government supplier because as per the guidelines, the supply work will have to be allotted to the lowest bidder.
“It does not matter whether the supplier was from Sohra, Tura or Nongstoin,” he said without elaborating on the identity of Lynrah. However, he added that the supplier was registered with the government.
According to Shullai, to say that by giving work to a firm from Sohra is diverting the MLA scheme to other constituency is a baseless allegation.
Wahlang had demanded a high-level probe into the misappropriation and action against the firm owned by Lynrah.
“The MCIC office is already on the job to submit all utilisation certificates, vouchers, names of the beneficiaries of the MLA scheme by next month to the Urban Affairs department,” he said.