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Meghalaya : Setbacks to Lapang within and without

	October 17, 2005

The chaos in the Garo hills over the Meghalaya government’s plan to restructure school education rocked the State Assembly last week which raucously debated the issue for two hours before an irritated Speaker put an end to it by blocking the legislative amendment required to revamp the school education board.



Speaker M.M. Danggo’s move was the second setback in as many days for Chief Minister D.D. Lapang, who had made a fruitless trip to Tura to convince the Garo Students’ Union to agree to the amendment.



The uproar in the Assembly began almost immediately after the autumn session got under way. Legislator B.G. Momin of the United Democratic Party (UDP), which is a constituent of the Congress-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance, was the first to oppose Lapang’s plan to table the Meghalaya Board of School Education Ordinance by citing a public interest litigation that is still pending in Gauhati High Court.



The legislator told the media later that he was only trying to ensure there were no legal complications. “I only wanted to know whether it would be sub judice if the ordinance were to be tabled.”



The UDP member’s clarification, however, failed to hide the rift in the ruling coalition. Intriguingly, even the Opposition was not united on the issue and the absence of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislators did not help its cause.



The heated exchanges among members of the ruling coalition - Congress legislator R.G. Lyngdoh and Meghalaya Democratic Party member P.T. Sawkmie were the most voluble - forced the Speaker to intervene and stall the move to table the ordinance.



Chief Minister Lapang and his Deputy, Donkupar Roy, argued that any ordinance had to be tabled on the first day of a session, but the Speaker refused to be drawn into further debate. Both leaders later said neither the government nor the education department had been intimated about the legal hurdles.



The court is scheduled to resume proceedings on November 14 on the public interest litigation filed by Tura District Council member John Leslee Sangma and five others.



The Board of School Education has been the bone of contention between the Garo and Khasi hills ever since the Khasi Students’ Union began a campaign to overhaul the organisation.



A government-constituted committee recently suggested that the board, which operates from Tura in West Garo Hills district, could do with a regional office in Shillong. The Garo community perceives this as an attempt to bifurcate the board to placate organisations in the Khasi hills.



Lapang declared that the government would go ahead with its plans. “We will not allow anyone to prevent us from tabling the bill. The Assembly is the right place for it (the contentious issue) to be discussed,” he said.





PA Sangma resigns



Tura MP Purno A. Sangma submitted his resignation to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee owning moral responsibility for the police firing that resulted in the death of nine persons in Garo hills.



With Purno Sangma’s resignation, elections to the Tura Lok Sabha seat will have to be held within six months of its falling vacant. Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson D.P. Tripathi said no agreement has been arrived at on a consensus candidate.







Politically motivated, says Lapang



Commenting on Sangma’s resogmation from the Lok Sabha, Meghalaya Chief Minister D.D. Lapang described it as an attemt by the former Lok Sabha Speaker to politicise violence and not allowing the wounds left by the September 30 incidents in Garo hills to heal.



Going hammer and tongs at the Garo strongman, Lapang alleged that Sangma was ‘exploiting the situation’ for his personal and political gains.



Lapang was upset at the absence of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLAs at the all-party meeting held at his residence on October 10 and chose the occasion to launch an attack on Sangma whom he held responsible for the MLAs absence at the ‘all important meet’.



The meeting was called to discuss the situation in Garo hills following the September 30 incidents in Tura and Williamnagar, which left nine persons dead in police firing and hundreds others injured.



The Chief Minister termed the developments in the NCP as ‘unfortunate’. Following Sangma’s resignation, the seven NCP MLAs in Meghalaya had also expressed their desire to resign and held a meeting in Guwahati to discuss the matter. The NCP national president is understood to have given his consent to their resignation.



Lapang said: ‘This a time when all of us, cutting across party lines, should sit together and help restore normality and peace in Garo hills and not look for political gains.’



‘Purno Sangma had also resigned from the Nationalist Trinamool Congress (NTC) to join the NCP. There is nothing new about it. But to say that he was resigning over the Garo hills incident, is not right. He made up his mind to resign for political interest and wanted to fit in his decision during the present crisis,’ Lapang said.