‘People may stop participating in Council polls’
SHILLONG: While terming the recent developments in the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) as sad, North Shillong MLA and former KHADC CEM Adelbert Nongrum said that such political dramas that are inherent to the Council will not allow the representatives to focus on important matters.
“It is sad that this has happened. In such a situation, the spirit of the Sixth Schedule is not achieved as the representatives are involved in these political developments”, he said.
Nongrum, who is also a former MDC, said that it will not be a surprise if the people do not participate in Council elections anymore seeing the political twists and turns.
“The first and top most priority in the Council should be to protect and promote the indigenous people’s rights but with due respect to the public representatives, I can see that it is not happening”, he said.
With the issue of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) returning to the fore, Nongrum said that the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act should be replaced with Inner Line Permit (ILP) if the legislation does not serve the purpose of protecting the people.
“If the Residents Act fails to serve its purpose, then it is only ILP that will protect the people. In saying so, it does not mean that we disallow people from entering our state, but certain strict norms should be in place so that the outsiders are not affected and the indigenous people are also safe,” he said. He said the central government will have its own way, but the state government will have to take up the responsibility to protect the indigenous people by coming up with strong laws to protect.
He observed that the central government should not act in haste to legislate the CAB and asserted that if the state government is pro-indigenous then it should start doing its work.