SHILLONG, Feb 14: Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma came down hard on his political opponents, saying that it was in the nature of the Opposition to complaint against the state government.
“If we do not open up they ask why we do not open up. But if we open up they question why we have opened up,” Sangma said, reacting to the criticism of Opposition leader Mukul Sangma on the state government’s recent decision to ease COVID-19 restrictions.
Mukul had stated that the government decision conveyed its inability to understand things in-depth.
According to the CM, the Opposition always tries to find faults with everything that the government does.
“This is not the way governance and politics should work. They should give positive suggestions to the government. Their way of functioning has only been negative,” Sangma said.
The chief minister pointed out that there was nothing wrong about adopting strategies from other states.
“We like to see what other states are doing. It is natural for a state to closely follow the policies adopted by other states and pick the best strategies from them,” Sangma said.
The opposition leader had, earlier, pointed out that the MDA Government just copy-pastes strategies from other states. He was referring to the Meghalaya government’s decision to ease COVID restrictions after Assam government decided to do so.
City schools take it easy
Only a few schools in the city resumed offline mode of teaching for Classes 1 to 5 on Monday.
Principal of Holy Child Higher Secondary School, Demthring, Sr. Delphine Fernandes said children were excited about returning to school.
She said the response was good as many children turned up for online classes. “We had not anticipated such a large attendance. We had not compelled the parents to send their children,” Sr. Fernandes said.
Some schools were conducting online examinations since the government had extended the 2021 academic session till February.
They are expected to resume regular offline classes for the next academic session from March after the declaration of results.
Principal of Jail Road Boys’ Higher Secondary School, Jibananda Pal said offline classes will resume after results of promotion examinations of different classes are announced.
Some schools did not want to rush in resuming offline classes for the primary section.
While Laitumkhrah Presbyterian Higher Secondary School has decided not to start offline classes immediately in view of the pre-board examinations for Classes X and Class XII, St. Margaret’s Higher Secondary School will start offline classes for 1 to 5 batch wise from Tuesday. St. Anthony’s Higher Secondary School will re-open for offline classes from February 17 after the end of the winter vacation.
It is expected that majority of the schools will resume classroom teaching for all classes from the first week of March.
25 fresh COVID-19 cases
The state on Monday recorded 25 fresh cases of COVID-19 while one more patient succumbed to the viral infection in the past 24 hours taking the death toll to 1,563.
There are 716 active cases while 90,737 people have recovered so far, including 59 on the day.