TURA, Aug 24: The Meghalaya Chamber of Commerce (MCC) on Wednesday gave the lie to the charges made by West Garo Hills Superintendent of Police Vivekanand Singh that BJP leader Bernard Mark is behind the price rise of commodities in Tura.
Maintaining that the allegations are baseless, the MCC, in a statement here, pointed out that while the MCC comprises both tribal and non-tribals, it was only those belonging to the tribal community that were being targeted.
“The MCC is an elected body of both tribal and non-tribal members. It has no role to play in price fixation or is involved in the price hike of any consumer or food items like snacks, vegetables, fish, meat, fruits, eggs, sweets, confectionaries etc in Garo Hills,” MCC Anish M Sangma said.
Arguing that Tura MDC Bernard N Marak has no role to play in its functioning, the MCC said that the allegations were condemnable.
The MCC, while strongly denying its alleged involvement in the price hike, recalled that its former president Wilver Greham Danggo had earlier opposed the hike in prices of sweets and confectionaries as well and stressed on the need to review the issue.
An irked BJP too lashed out at the SP, and called the allegations baseless.
Reacting to the SP’s statement, BJP Tura general secretary Wilver Danggo said that attempt was being made to malign the BJP for seeking his removal from the district.
“The statement given by the Tura SP is baseless as he wants to malign our image because we demanded his removal from Tura,” said Wilver in a press release.
He also questioned the authority of the police in matters of price hike of commodities.
“In matters of price hike, the district administration will interfere and not the police. Police are for law and order and not to check price hikes. MCC is a traders’ organisation and consists of 400 mixed community members. Why is it that the Tura SP gives the names of BJP members and that too only of one community,” questioned the BJP leader.
He said that that despite the BJP always cooperating with the police, the new disclosure indicate political vendetta.
“We still demand removal of Tura SP as we do not need a person sitting in the top post in the district and acting on the direction of his higher-ups. We need a fair investigation and we still demand for an independent enquiry into Bernard Marak’s case,” asserted Wilver.
It may be mentioned that the West Garo Hills SP on Tuesday said that Bernard Marak was behind the hike in prices of commodities in Tura.
