By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Jan 21: The Opposition TMC has asked the state government to walk the talk and publicise the government notification on repealing the Meghalaya Gaming Act 2021.
“We demand from the MDA Government to publicise the notification and keep it in public domain as it had promised the people of the state that the ordinance will be brought in,” said TMC vice president, George B Lyngdoh.
Stating that the until February 2021, gambling was illegal in Meghalaya due to the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act 1970, he reminded that the MDA government brought in the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act 2021 and also the Gaming Rules 2021 .
“In September 2022, the CM had ruled out the scrapping of the Act despite protest from several quarters and licenses were also issued to three casinos,” he said.
“After succumbing to public pressure, the government had promised to come up with an ordinance to repeal the Act that was passed by the cabinet and the assurance was given on November 9, 2022. However, we’ve noticed that no official notification has been issued to repeal the act,” Lyngdoh said, adding, “We demand that the ordinance should be made public.”
The state government had announced to repeal the Meghalaya Gaming Act 2021 after opposition from several quarters.
Although initially, the state government had tried to stifle the opposition but it had to pass an ordinance to repeal the Act under mounting pressure from church organisations and political parties.