HYC slams CM for avoiding key issues in I-Day speech

SHILLONG, Aug 18: The Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) hit out at Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Thursday for not touching important issues such as Inner Line Permit (ILP), Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), alleged anti-tribal and anti-Christian policies of the RSS, “atrocities” against the Christians, ban on beef consumption etc during his Independence Day speech.
HYC general secretary Roy Kupar Synrem said Sangma spoke at length only about the achievements and the initiatives of his government.
“What is interesting though is that in his 24-page and 46-paragraph speech, he stresses on the words ‘I, me and my’ and not ‘ours or us’ when taking the word ‘government’,” the HYC leader said.
He said the CM repeatedly stated ‘my government’ and ‘I started/I did/I initiated/I launched’ the various programmes.
Terming this as strange, Synrem said, “…we always thought that the government is ‘of the people, for the people and  by the people’, not someone’s personal property.”
Stating that the government has forgotten the basic and important issues concerning the state and the Hynniewtrep people, he said there were no words in Sangma’s speech about ILP, Meghalaya Residents’ Safety and Security (Amendment) Bill, 2020, demand to repeal CAA from the state and the inclusion of Khasi and Garo languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
“This is a complete insult to the people of the state, especially the indigenous population,” Synrem said.
The HYC attacked the CM also for not uttering a single word on the serious corruption charges against his government or about the leakage of revenue of the state, skyrocketing of prices of essential items or about the charges of abnormal escalation of costs of various government projects.
“Conrad Sangma in his speech said nothing on what his government is doing about anti-tribal and anti-Christian policy of the RSS and the BJP like the ban on beef, torturing of Christians, imposition of Hindi upto class 10 etc. Even the important issue of price rise, especially of essential commodities, found no mention in his speech,” the HYC said.
The pressure group criticised Sangma for not saying anything on the government’s initiative or policy to tackle the menace of drug abuse despite it affecting a lot of youth and their families across the state. The CM’s silence on the demand of various stakeholders to repeal the Gambling Act also drew the HYC’s flak.
“Conrad Sangma said nothing on environment protection and on the plan to mine uranium by UCIL even though demands have been made to pass a resolution in the Assembly,” the HYC said.