SHILLONG, Dec 20: United Democratic Party (UDP) leader and Cabinet Minister Kyrmen Shylla on Tuesday asserted that no political party has the right to lay claim over any government scheme as they rightfully belong to the people.
“Neither the NPP nor the UDP or any other party can claim that the schemes belong to them as it is meant for the people. The political parties have no rights to make such claim as every single penny belongs to the people,” Shylla said while talking about the controversy surrounding the FOCUS and FOCUS+ schemes.
UDP working president Paul Lyngdoh had recently termed FOCUS and FOCUS+ programmes as “politically motivated”.
“The sole intention of this flagship initiative is to buy votes in the forthcoming Assembly polls,” Lyngdoh had claimed.
According to him, the decision to implement the FOCUS programmes in the urban centres is a flagrant violation of the norms. He said the scheme was rural-based and meant for the farmers when it was initiated in 2011.
Lyngdoh said it was launched in the West Shillong constituency in the presence of Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma.
“How can a government programme be announced at the rally of a political party? The scheme, meant for the farmers, was announced at a programme to welcome the office bearers of the NPP of West Shillong,” the UDP working president had said.
