The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has promised the electors of Garo Hills that he will fight to restore their land to them in the B Mahal areas and those patches that were signed over to Assam under last year’s controversial border agreement.
Leader of the opposition Dr Mukul Sangma said this at a public meeting today in Resubelpara, accompanied by TMC candidate for that seat, Rinaldo K Sangma.
Addressing the people, Mukul reiterated that the TMC will scrap the Assam-Meghalaya border agreement and get the B Mahal land, which was at the centre of a controversy over the way the GHADC took control of it, back for the people.
“I promise to bring back the land from Assam and the B Mahal land where our ancestors resided,” he said. “We know this government viciously snatched the land but I promise I will give it back to the people after we form the government.”
Mukul also took aim at the state government over the pending recruitment of government school teachers and promised to increase salaries for government teachers and other state employees “as soon as possible”.
“During my tenure (as Chief Minister), I revised the salaries of government employees twice a year but this current government didn’t even increase the salaries once in the last five years,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, Rinaldo rubbished claims by the National People’s Party (NPP) that TMC members would defect to or form an alliance with the BJP after the election.
“The BJP and TMC can never come together as Trinamool Congress has a different ideology. India is a very diverse country and we want to preserve that diversity, unlike the BJP,” Rinaldo, who is also the MDC for Rongrong, said.
He also claimed that the state government has taken the Centre’s PM Kisan scheme for farmers and rebranded it FOCUS and claimed it as a state scheme.
“PM Kisan is given by the central government. The state government must give it to everybody in Meghalaya but the current MDA government is not disbursing these funds. Instead, they are naming it the FOCUS scheme by the NPP,” Rinaldo said.
