Voice of the People Party (VPP) president Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit MLA said the party will hold a victory rally the day the Lok Sabha election results are announced in defiance of orders by the district administration.
The results of the general election will be declared on June 4, with the VPP confident of winning the Shillong seat. Section 144 of the CrPC has been imposed to ban victory rallies, with the Deputy Commissioner SC Sadhu saying that, as it is a working day, the move was necessary so as not to disturb the general public.
The VPP has already come out in opposition to the order and has challenged Sadhu on it.
Basaiawmoit said today that the argument that the district administration is apprehensive of law and order issues on counting day is just an excuse to hide an ulterior motive. “They only know what is the [real] reason behind imposing Section 144 CrPC,” the Nongkrem MLA said.
He also said that as the party expects that it will win the Shillong seat and the celebrations should be conducted in an orderly manner even as he reiterated that the VPP will not allow anyone from stopping them to do so.
Such an order to ban rallies is nothing but a state government move to trample upon the rights of the citizens in a democracy. Basaiawmoit said that Meghalaya cannot be compared with other states of the country where there is political violence because there have hardly been any untoward incidents in Meghalaya after an election result.
