With just over a week to go until Meghalaya celebrates 50 years of statehood, North Shillong MLA Adelbert Nongrum has threatened to boycott the festivities if certain demands he has made are not met by the government.
In a letter delivered in person to Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, Nongrum, the lone legislator from the Khun Hynñiewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM), asked for action to be taken to revise the state’s reservation policy, increase the upper age limit for government jobs, create a separate Meghalaya cadre for the civil service, relocate the Sweepers’ Colony residents and solve Meghalaya’s border dispute with Assam.
If solutions cannot be found, the golden jubilee celebrations would be “meaningless and unpurposeful”, he said.
While stating that Meghalaya is “too dependent” on quotas, Nongrum opined that the state needs a dedicated reservation policy for the educational sphere. He wants 80 percent of seats reserved for tribals (Khasi, Jaiñtia and Garo) in one block (rather than 40 percent for Khasi-Jaiñtias and 40 percent for Garos), with merit being more of a driving force than it is at present. He was also critical that reservation for tribals in government jobs can be bypassed “on the basis of linguistics”.
The relaxation of age limits is a pet project of Nongrum, who brings it up almost every time he has a chance to do so. Here he called for government jobs to be open to people up to the age of 32, with a relaxation of five years for members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, in keeping with other states and the Centre.
