UDP asks MDA to consider implementing ILP

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaFebruary 10, 2019

SHILLONG: The United Democratic Party (UDP) has asked the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government to consider implementing the Inner Line Permit (ILP) system besides strengthening various existing laws to protect the indigenous community.

The demand came following the move of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre to implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The UDP is the main ally of the National People’s Party led MDA government.

“The party is of the strong opinion, that in light of the recent news reports regarding the CAB, the government should seriously look into the implementation of ILP and, in fact, even go beyond it if required, in the interest of giving more teeth to it, considering the complexities and challenges of the 21st century,” UDP vice president Allantry Franklin Dkhar said in a statement issued here on Sunday.

Asserting the need to also further strengthen the existing laws, Dkhar said the Party urgently urges upon the government to strengthen the Land Transfer Act by doing away with certain provisions that alienates land in the garb of tribal interest.

He said the Industrial policy has to be fine-tuned, to curb the ongoing practices of availing plots at the industrial estates to outside entities at the expense of the state’s exchequer.

He added that the trading license issued by the District Councils has to be strictly implemented considering that the local indigenous people are competent enough to carry out various trades.

According to him, the regulation and registration of outside labourers is another area of great concern which the government needs to seriously look into.

“The registration of voters from outside the state is another area of grave concern, especially along the international borders as well as the inter-state borders, where their actual antecedents need to be properly verified before registering them,” Dkhar said.

Meanwhile, the UDP further appealed to the people, not to fall prey to propaganda of national parties, who as all can see are more concerned with vote banks rather than the well being of the state’s population.

“The contention that the opposition Congress is the only party that can fight against the CAB is another opportunistic ploy to fool the electorate,” Dkhar alleged adding “The electorate knows that if all the north eastern states were under regional parties’ regime, the centre would have not dared but going by history on how the north eastern states vote national parties to power, the union government has seized the opportunity.”

He claimed that the party which in this current term has no MP and is not part of NDA, as NDA is a Parliamentary Alliance.

The regrouping of all North Eastern Political Parties in Guwahati has rendered NEDA bereft of regional parties, Dkhar stated.