Party asks whether Conrad-led NPP is pushing for a North Korea-like dictatorship
By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, July 19: The Voice of the People Party (VPP) on Saturday asked whether the National People’s Party aspired for a North Korea-style governance where dissent is throttled.
The VPP drew a comparison between the Conrad K Sangma-led party and Kim Jong Un’s dictatorship in response to a statement by the president of the NPP Women’s Wing and MDC from Nongskhen, Grace Mary Kharpuri. She recently claimed that Meghalaya remains obscure and unrecognised globally because certain individuals persist in criticising the government.
Her remark, seemingly aimed at opposition voices, angered the VPP leadership.
“Do they want to rule like Kim Jong Un?” VPP spokesperson Batskhem Myrboh said, accusing the NPP of promoting a brand of governance where even legitimate scrutiny is treated as sabotage.
He asked whether the Kharpuri and the NPP think an ideal Meghalaya is one where the government is immune to public accountability and where citizens are expected to only praise, regardless of the reality on the ground. “Are we to believe that the backwardness in education, the rise in poverty, the crumbling condition of roads, recurring power shortages, choking traffic, careless public expenditure, and the growing menace of drugs are all happening simply because people dare to speak up?” Myrboh said.
He dismissed the claim as not just irrational but dangerous, arguing that it reduces complex governance failures to a shallow blame game.
“This kind of reasoning is not what one expects from a political leader. It sounds more like the words of naïve children who have not yet learned to think critically or face inconvenient truths,” he said.
Myrboh maintained that any healthy democracy must allow space for questioning, debate, and critique, especially when the lives and futures of the people are at stake.
He warned that the ruling party’s increasing tendency to conflate the opposition with enmity is indicative of authoritarianism, rather than the democratic values that Meghalaya’s people uphold.
“To be against mis-governance is not to be against the state. It is, in fact, the duty of every responsible citizen. Governance is not a monarchy, and Meghalaya is not a one-party fiefdom,” he concluded.