India News Online » News Analysis » Indian Politics » 

Meghalaya : Kyndiah comes out in Lapang support

	January 03, 2005

Union Minister P.R. Kyndiah came to Meghalaya chief minister D.D. Lapang’s rescue saying there was no crisis within the Congress-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government.



Kyndiah, who has been in the state capital since December 24, said that “things are bright” and that he was optimistic that the government in Meghalaya would remain steady for a full term.



The Union Minister seemed unhappy with reports, which he claimed had wrongly quoted him on the present situation.



“I have a clear mind on the situation and I think that everything is fine and I am going to Delhi to submit my report with a clear mind,” said Kyndiah.

Soon after differences surfaced within the MDA, with a section of MLAs within the government demanding that Congress President Salseng C. Marak be made the new Chief Minister, reports were doing the rounds that Kyndiah, too, was not happy with the present leadership.



Lapang ready to face House test

Meghalaya Chief Minister D.D. Lapang said he was prepared for a trial of strength in the Assembly if the group of legislators demanding a change at the top so desired.



Lapang’s ability to lead the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) was questioned by members of the coalition, including the Congress, in the wake of two setbacks within the Assembly.



On December 20, members of the ruling coalition ganged up with the Opposition to vote against the proposal to build a new Assembly complex at Mawdiangdiang. The next day brought further embarrassment with the government failing to get a contingency fund bill passed.



The Chief Minister, however, told the media at his residence that he was confident of tiding over the crisis. He said all contentious issues would be resolved during a meeting with the MLAs of the ruling coalition.

Worried over the fate of the 20-month-old government, the Congress High Command had summoned both Lapang and former chief minister Salseng C. Marak - he is being touted as an alternative - to end the crisis. Lapang left for New Delhi immediately to present his case before Sonia Gandhi, but Marak chose not to go. The Congress veteran said he would abide by any decision taken by the AICC.

As many as 16 of the 27 Congress legislators in the 60-member Assembly had petitioned the AICC to replace Lapang with Marak.

On reports that his government had been reduced to a minority, Lapang said nothing could be farther from the truth.



Terrorists funding : The bitter truth

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s admission that at least a part of the Centre’s development fund for the North-eastern States goes to finance terrorist activities there, hardly comes as a surprise. The fact has been known for decades to people familiar with developments in the region. Contractors implementing Central projects-and projects run with Central grants-in the power and other infrastructure sectors regularly pay to terrorist outfits a percentage of the total amount spent. An alarmingly large number of employees of these as well as Central and State Government offices, also contribute a part of their salaries every month- some because they are from the region and sympathetic to a particular terrorist group; others because they are intimidated into doing it by assaults, murders and abductions.

Patil, who was responding to a question at the Intelligence Bureau’s annual Centenary Endowment lecture in Delhi, was doubtless right when he pointed out that besides receiving foreign funds, terrorist and insurgent groups also financed themselves though gun-running, abductions for ransom, narcotics smuggling, bank robberies and extortion. It is common knowledge that tea gardens in Assam regularly pay huge amounts to the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and organisations like the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB). The basic fact, however, remains that these outfits can indulge in all this because of the Government’s failure to stamp out the insurgency that began in the region in the 1950s when the Nagas took to arms.

Of course, nobody can under-estimate the problems that the Central and State Governments face in combating insurgency in the North-east difficult terrain, hilly and densely forested; lack of roads; porous borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar, and the active assistance and sanctuary the former provides to secessionist rebels from the region who have 195 camps on its soil. While all this is true, the fact remains that there has been, for long spells, a lack of the kind of focus and determination that successful conduct of counter-insurgency operations require. In Assam, the Congress has not been above playing footsie with the ULFA for electoral support. In Nagaland, a Congress Chief Minister’s links with the National-Socialist Council of Nagalim (Khaplang) is hardly a secret. There is besides, a lack of sensitivity and alertness which was glaringly underlined by the recent flare-up in Manipur which might have been prevented if Delhi had taken prompt measures to defuse the tension building up over the alleged rape and murder of a young woman by men of the Assam Rifles.