The Hynñiewtrep Integrated Territorial Organisation (HITO) has submitted a representation to Meghalaya Governor CH Vijayashankar requesting that the autonomous district councils be thoroughly depoliticised, with no one contesting its seats allowed to do so on a political party ticket.
HITO maintained that MDCs are mainly concerned with using their role in the councils as a stepping stone to the Assembly, which causes the work of the councils to suffer.
“It can be seen in the past that 97 per cent of MDCs in the KHADC contest the MLA elections,” the letter to the Governor said. In the 2018 Assembly election 26 out of the 30 (under 90 per cent) MDCs in the KHADC contested.
“Similar such instances were common in the past, causing a huge vacuum in the administration of the KHADC,” the pressure group added, while accusing MDCs of interfering in the Dorbar Shnong, Dorbar Raid and Dorbar Hima, leading to a number of cases in the courts, misappropriate of central government funds, and sanction of MDC funds “only on the basis of political affiliation”.
MDCs are so unconcerned about the district councils that sessions sometimes last for only a couple of days, which does not give enough time for important lawmaking, HITO said. It also called for the provision of 10 seats in the councils for traditional leaders (Syiem, Lyngdoh, Sirdar, Wahadar, Dolloi) as nominated members for a term of two years.
HITO also wants a central government-appointed committee to implement the Instrument of Accession and Annexed Agreement signed by the Khasi states with the Union of India after 1947, which brought the Khasi Hills into independent India.
