SHILLONG: Shortly after the Union Cabinet approved the Constitutional amendment to increase financial resources and other powers of Autonomous Councils in the Sixth Schedule areas of North East India, Opposition Chief whip and Congress MLA, PT Sawkmie said it was meant fir pacifying agitation against Citizenship Amendment Bill.
The Congress legislator said the BJP-led NDA Government approved the amendments suddenly only to pacify the people of the North East region after the region started united protest against the contentious Bill.
Demanding that the Citizenship Amendment Bill be scrapped, the MLA said that the Union Government was doing wrong and there was a hidden agenda behind the decision of the Cabinet to approve the amendments to the Sixth Schedule.
“ BJP has realised that their future prospects in the region and in the country will be affected with the Bill. Since the Lok Sabha elections are just around the corner, the BJP government has taken this decision suddenly,” he said.
He added that Meghalaya Government for long had been demanding the necessary amendments in the Sixth Schedule but the Central Government paid no heed to the demands for long.
On the other hand, leader of Opposition, Mukul Sangma said that this was the culmination of an exhaustive exercise by the then state government of Meghalaya with collective efforts and contributions of members of the civil society, the churches and the commitment of the ANVC to restore lasting peace in sync with the aspirations of the people of the state.
It is only appropriate to refresh our mind as how long and how meticulously we had to work on to come out with the comprehensive memorandum of settlement leading to the disbanding of the ANVC and ANVC(B).,” he said
The Leader of Opposition also added that the Union Government was expected to complete the process of amendment and assured the state government then – even requesting the state government to postpone the scheduled election to the GHADC to which the state government complied only to see that the Union Government was moving slow and on number of occasions displeasure about the delay was expressed by the stakeholders and the people.
BJP MLA and Cabinet Minister, AL Hek, meanwhile, welcomed the move of the Union Government to approve the amendments in the Sixth Schedule.
Another Cabinet Minister, Hamlet Dohling said that the Government would study the details of the decisions and the matter will be discussed in the Government.