Shillong, Nov 20: Peeved at the lukewarm response of the MDA coalition to the corruption charges against district councils, the State BJP has decided to knock at the door of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) hoping to go to the bottom of it.
The meeting has been scheduled and a team of the State BJP leaders will head to New Delhi by November-end or early December.
“They have already called us but we could not go due to the COVID-19 situation and also few national leaders of the party will be visiting the state in days to come and it is only after that,” said a party source on the request of anonymity.
Stating that the Autonomous District Councils are under the MHA and not under the ministry and all funding are done with the recommendations of the MHA, the source said, “With all these anomalies in the GHADC and JHADC, it has to go to the MHA as they are the right authorities”. “Even the CBI will take time to come here but if the MHA recommends for the inquiry it will be prompt,” added the source.
The source reiterated that after the visit of the BJP national leaders to the state, the leaders of the party will visit the national capital for the discussions.
Meanwhile, when contacted, BJP State president Ernest Mawrie refused to comment on the development.
It may be recalled that the State BJP has gone all out demanding for a CBI probe into the alleged misappropriation of central funds under the Special Assistance Grant (SAG) by the GHADC and the JHADC.
This move of the BJP had also strained the relationship between the BJP and the MDA coalition, of which it is a constituent, with the MDA maintaining that they could have raised the issue through a proper forum and the State BJP maintaining that the state government never paid heed to the issue when they raised and that the issue is very well in the knowledge of Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma as the State BJP leaders have had a discussion with him earlier on this.
Such is the magnitude of the issue that while the State BJP threatened to pull out of the coalition, senior NPP leaders including Chief Minister Conrad Sangma stated that they are free to go if they are unhappy with the coalition.
The State BJP had also decided to approach the Lokayukta to probe the corruption charges.