NPP wants President's rule in Meghalaya

Shillong: Opposition National People’s Party in Meghalaya today demanded President’s rule in the state alleging that the Congress-led coalition government has failed to maintain law and order especially in the Garo Hills region where a woman was allegedly killed by militants. “We demand for imposition of President’s Rule in the state of Meghalaya,” NPP legislator James K Sangma said while moving the adjournment motion to discuss the deteriorating law and order situation in the Garo Hills region on the first day of the Assembly’s extended budget session held in Shillong today.[caption id=“attachment_1559623” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Security challenge. AFP[/caption] “We and the people of the state have lost faith in Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and his government after its failure to tackle the deteriorating law and order situation, to address the aspirations of the youths and improve the delivery mechanism,” he said. He condemned Tuesday’s alleged killing of a 35-year-old woman when she resisted an attempt of rape and molestation by GNLA militants. “This is a time when the state government needs to take pro-active measures and for the chief minister himself to visit Garo Hills and take stock of the situation to bring back confidence of the people rather than coming out with empty words and promises,” he said. Criticising the government’s ex-gratia payment of only Rs 1 lakh to victim’s family, the NPP leader said, “Is this a joke or is the state government trying to make fun of the issue.” “It’s insulting and total carelessness of the government towards the victim’s family when it was ready to pay a compensation of Rs 3 lakhs each to the families of eight labourers killed in Nongalbibra despite the fact that they are not from Meghalaya,” he said while demanding to increase the ex-gratia payment to Rs 10 lakh. Supporting the motion, Leader of Opposition, Conrad Sangma, said, “The Chief Minister should step down and let the state be under the President’s Rule if we want peace to prevail.” Though the chief minister did not reply to the satisfaction of the Opposition members on all points, the motion was voted out in the end. PTI