GUWAHATI: Congress leader and former Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma has alleged that Chief Minister Conrad Sangma “had breached the privilege of the Meghalaya Assembly by remaining in denial mode in regard to illegal mining in the state, which also amounted to misleading the House”.
Talking to the media on the sidelines of a consultative meeting with stakeholders on Congress’ manifesto for 2019 here on Monday evening, Sangma said that as leader of the Opposition he had pointed out in the Assembly that “illegal mining was happening in the state and that the (MDA) government was facilitating the activity.”
“This was subsequently articulated appropriately and substantiated by the National Green Tribunal which thereafter constituted an independent committee headed by a former Judge which submitted an interim report based on which a penalty of Rs 100 crore was imposed on the Meghalaya government,” he said. The former chief minister said the NGT action only reflected the “lies that the MDA government had been engaging in and after that they stopped lying. This is a serious allegation I am making. It amounts to misleading the House and breach of privilege. The MDA government knew that illegal mining was under way in the state but was always in denial mode,” Sangma said.
“When the leader of Opposition draws the attention of the government and cautions the government on illegal mining, how could the chief minister, immediately after reading the paper, say that there was no illegal mining going on? When did he get time to verify?”
“Illegal mining started immediately after formation of the MDA government almost a year back. You only have to look at the satellite images (to verify). Before the Assembly election, the BJP and NPP alleged that the Congress government had done nothing for the coal miners. Then after they formed the government, they said they would allow coal mining…But can any regulated mining be started in six months? …This means they wanted to misuse the government machinery,” the Congress leader alleged.
“People in power are involved in illegal mining in Meghalaya and that is a reflection of their greed,” he added.
The former chief minister also minced no words to lambast the incumbent government on the efforts to rescue 15 miners trapped in the flooded rat hole mine in Ksan since December 13.
“There were no efforts (by the government) in the beginning. Nothing was done on ground zero initially. There was no commitment. Some of the ministers were not in station, they were holidaying. It was only after they were pulled up by Supreme Court that they started acting. For them, people’s precious lives do not matter…So this is complete dereliction of duty, reflection of insensitivity and incompetence,” Sangma alleged.
