The Hynñiewtrep Youth Council (HYC) has said that the Independence Day speech of Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on August 15 neglected the basic and important issues concerning the State while the speech was mostly about him.
“What is interesting though is that in his 24 pages and 46 paragraphs speech is his stresses on the words ‘I, me and my’ and not ‘ours or us” when taking the word ‘government’. It is seen that he repeatedly stated ‘my government’ and ‘I started/ I did/I initiated/I launched’ the various programmes. This is something strange and not used of as the citizens of the State as we always thought that the government is of the people, for the people, by the people and not someone’s personal property,” the HYC said today.
It also said that the basic and important issues concerning the State as a whole and the Hynniewtrep people in particular were not mentioned in the speech by the chief minister.
“No words find a place in his speech about ILP, MRSS (Amendment) Bill 2020, the demand to repeal CAA from Meghalaya, inclusion of Khasi and Garo language in the Eighth Schedule. This is a complete insult to the people of the State especially the indigenous population,” the HYC said.
“In his speech Conrad Sangma has no word on serious corruption charges against his government or anything about the leakage of revenue of the State or even a minute mentioned about sky-rocketing of price of essential commodities, abnormal price escalation in various government projects during his last four and half years as chief minister and neither a single word on fair job recruitment,” it added.
The HYC also said that Sangma in his speech said nothing on what his government is doing about anti tribal and anti Christian policy of the RSS and the BJP like beef ban, persecution of Christian across the country, imposition of Hindi language upto class 10 etc.
It also said that Sangma did not say a single word on the government initiative or policy to tackle the menace of drug abuse in the State. “Our youth and their family have been affected largely in the whole State due to drug abuse yet our chief minister does not think it is an important issue which the government should speak about or do something. Maybe to Conrad Sangma, these issues related to the ordinary citizens of the State are not important,” it said.
“He did not utter a single word on the demand of various stakeholders to repeal the Gambling Act. Conrad said nothing on environmental protection and on the plan to mine uranium by UCIL even though demands have been made to pass a resolution in the Assembly,” the HYC said.
