KHNAM slams 60 MLAs for fooling people over ILP issue

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaFebruary 17, 2023

The Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) on Thursday said the 60 legislators have fooled the people of Meghalaya on the issue of inner line permit (ILP).

This came a day after the BJP national general secretary Rituraj Sinha asserted that the ILP issue needs to be deliberated post-election when responding to a query as to why the party manifesto was silent on this long pending demand of the people of Meghalaya.

Sinha had claimed that a lot of people have argued that ILP is restrictive which could result in significant opportunity loss to the tourism sector.

In a statement, KHNAM vice president Thomas Passah said the ILP issue has been pending with the central government for the past four years.

“And now the BJP general secretary Rituraj Sinha has said that “the ILP issue needs to be deliberate post-election. The question is has the ILP been kept lock in some of the almirah in Delhi? How much more do we need to deliberate?” he asked.

Referring to the state of Sikkim as one of the most important tourist state known nationally and internationally, Passah said, “But even in Sikkim there are two types of restriction in place one is Restricted Area Permit (similar to ILP) and Protected Area Permit, and these restriction have not compromise the tourism of the State but have only boosts it. Therefore to say that ILP will (affect) the tourism of the state is totally incorrect.”

He said the objective of the ILP is not to stop anyone from entering the state as authorized to every citizen of India by Article 19 (d) (e) of the Indian Constitution, but it is just a system to merely keep checks on those entering the state in a way of a reasonable restriction as authorized under

Article 19(5) of the Indian Constitution which states: “Nothing in sub clauses (d) and (e) of the said clause shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law imposing, reasonable restrictions on the exercise of any of the rights conferred by the said sub clauses either in the interests of the general public or for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe”.

Further, Passah said that the past government and all 60 MLAs have fooled the people of the state on ILP through a resolution passed in 2019, “wherein they have chosen not to make any attempt to ensure that ILP is put in place to safeguard the identity and interest of the tribes of the State”.

“Conrad, with great joy had accepted the Notification of the President of India on December 11 2019, which included Manipur under ILP. The Centre has changed the Preamble of the Eastern Bengal Frontier Regulation Act and the word Khasi-Jaintia was deleted though it was there earlier,” he said while adding “It is shocking to see that our government has not appealed against this nor should we say that this was done after taking into confidence our state government?”

He further stated that removal of Khasi-Jaintia word from the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) 18874 is a clear violation of clause (3) (a) of the Article 372 – “Nothing in clause (2) shall be deemed – (a) to empower the President to make any adaptation or modification of any law after the expiration of (three years) from the commencement of the Constitution ..”

“Our States government and our political parties should have challenged such notification by the President of India since it has no leg to stand. The power to modify or make an  amendment with regard to such pre-Constitution laws at any point of time lies only with the Parliament,” he said.