MDA to approach Centre for more protection to Meghalaya

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaDecember 10, 2019

SHILLONG: The National People’s Party (NPP)-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government has decided to urge the Centre to fully exempt Meghalaya from the purview of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and to provide more protection to the state.

The government has also urge the governor Tathagata Roy to immediately approve the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019.

“As a cabinet, we have decided to go and strongly and meet the union home minister and apprise him of the situation and urged on him that more strong measures in different forms that may be available in different states needs to be taken for the state of Meghalaya also to ensure that more protection can be given to our people,” Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma told reporters after the cabinet meeting held here.

“We will urge the home minister and the government of India as a whole that the way they have listened and taken our suggestions into consideration, which as I said was not there earlier, but is there in this bill, I hope that this time also the government of India will listen to our suggestions and recommendations to ensure that more stronger measures are put into place to ensure that the measures to counter influx and to also protect our people as a whole can be taken up,” he said.

NPP MP Agatha K Sangma drew flak from anti-CAB organizations in the state as the entire state erupted in series of protests on Monday, hours after the CAB was passed in Parliament.

Effigies of the young woman parliamentarian from Garo Hills, who spoke in support of the CAB in Parliament, was reported burnt in several areas across the states even as protesters shouted converged in large number here shouting anti NPP slogans.

As normal life was affected by the bandh sponsored by the North East Students Organisation from 5 am till 4 pm, anti-CAB protesters converged in several areas across the state shouting anti-government slogans targeting MP Agatha Sangma, her party NPP and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Defending his sister Agatha and why she supported the CAB, Sangma said, “Yes, Agatha Sangma, has supported (the CAB) but we have been very clear that we want more provisions to ensure that more insulation is done with this bill and there are many ways in which Government of India can give more protection to the people of Meghalaya and the Northeast as a whole,” Conrad said.

He said when we went to meet the union home minister, we did not know any of these provisions (in the CAB, 2019). Once we met and once the bill came out, we realized that our number one concern about the fact that will Bangladeshi people from the Hindu religion or other religions the non Muslim will they continue to come into the state, that was address  by the fact that 2014 was the cut off and any application that is pending now are the only ones that will be looked at.”

He also assured, “I can tell you from our state there are hardly any applications of individuals who want citizenship who are from Bangladesh as we speak right now hardly. There may be 1-2 or maximum three such individuals, so therefore the question of many people coming in the future does not even arise because those applications will not be acceptable at all.”

According to him, the issue was addressed and that has given the government a bit more confidence on the CAB realizing that there will not be future impact.

He further reiterated that only the applications of the people who have applied before 2014 maybe consider and that also depends on the state government whether we approve or not so the complete power lies with the state government.

“So when we saw these kinds of steps taken and these measures taken we felt that the government has listened to our suggestions has done at least some steps to protect us. We want more and our MP (Agatha) was very clear that we want more protection and what has been done is appreciated and that is the reason we took that stand,” Sangma said.

The chief minister again defended by saying one cannot called it a U-turn as progress took place, changes took place, amendment were made, insertions were done, protection was given and based on that decision was taken.