The Congress Party today delivered a damning condemnation of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) promises to investigate corruption in the state government if it is voted to power in the upcoming Assembly election.
The BJP manifesto was released today by party president JP Nadda but the Congress was quick to release a statement to rip the saffron party to shreds.
One of the poll promises was that the BJP would establish a special taskforce under a retired Supreme Court judge to investigate cases of corruption in the outgoing government.
“This is a big joke because the BJP are themselves a part of the alliance,” the Congress said today. “The people of Meghalaya want to know – what were they doing for the last five years?”
The BJP won two seats in the 2018 election and each of its MLAs, AL Hek and Sanbor Shullai, shared cabinet positions over the last five years as part of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government.
“The BJP has realised that it will not win any seat in Meghalaya, so the announcement of this special taskforce is actually a veiled threat to other smaller parties to fall in line or else they will be under the scanner,” the Congress alleged through a press statement by its social media and IT chief Supriya Shrinate, party general secretary in charge of Meghalaya Manish Chatrath, media coordinator Bobbeeta Sharma and general secretary of the Meghalaya Congress, Sanjay Das.
They questioned whether, according to this manifesto promise, the BJP will investigate Shullai and Hek as well, adding that the entire manifesto is full of empty promises (jumlas) while that of the Congress (which was released last week) is “the best, realistic and implementable”.
Furthermore, the Congress attacked the BJP for being a threat to the identity of Meghalayans because of recurring incidents in other parts of the country, such as attacks on churches, lynching of innocents suspected of eating beef or transporting cattle, religious profiling of Christians and Muslims in Assam, anti-conversion law in Karnataka, demand by a BJP-linked group in Assam to remove the Scheduled Tribe status of tribals who had converted to another religion and the push for a Uniform Civil Code that shows the BJP’s “majoritarian mindset”.
“BJP polarises and spreads communal disharmony everywhere,” the Congress said. “The BJP has been in power for eight years at the Centre and has been a member of the ruling MDA alliance (in Meghalaya)… Shillong airport is still not connected by any major flight. There is no airport or National Highway connectivity to Tura. Power and water shortage still continue to exist. The only thing BJP has done is accuse its own government in Meghalaya of corruption.”
Meanwhile, the Congress did not spare the Trinamool Congress (TMC) or National People’s Party (NPP) either.
It had castigated the NPP earlier this week for massive corruption, dubbed ‘the grand Meghalaya loot’. Today, it also warned that the TMC would bring levels of political-related violence seen in West Bengal to Meghalaya if it gains a strong foothold in the state. The Congress also claimed that the TMC has been involved in huge corruption scams of its own in West Bengal over the years.
