Shillong, Sep 3: The Meghalaya Indigenous Minority Scheduled Tribe Forum (MIMSTF) has asked Chief Secretary and State Vigilance Commissioner, Donald P Wahlang, to step in after a fringe political party demanded that Scheduled Tribe (ST) quotas in Meghalaya apply only for the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo communities.
Specifically, KHNAM had referred to a special recruitment drive for the Border Security Force (BSF) open to Meghalayans.
MIMSTF spokesperson Kaushik Hajong said their forum represents minority ST communities such as Rabha, Hajong, Koch, Boro, Mann and Karbi. “Our youths are unemployed and eager to join the armed forces. We met the Chief Secretary and he assured us that the present system will continue. We are recognised as STs in Meghalaya and we are equally sons of the soil. We should not be excluded from the list,” Hajong said.
He also raised another issue regarding the Meghalaya Teacher Eligibility Test (MTET). In the exam form, candidates can only choose SC, ST or general categories. However, in the OMR sheet, there is a separate option called OST (Other Scheduled Tribe). Some minority ST candidates selected OST and their answer sheets were not evaluated because of the mismatch. An RTI inquiry later confirmed this, Hajong said. Around 100 minority ST candidates are now waiting for their papers to be checked.
Wahlang also reportedly assured them that this matter will also be looked into.
