The sole aim of the BJP is to implement measures that will “destroy and divide India”, senior UDP figure Bindo Lanong has told Highland Post.
Lanong was reacting to the planned visit by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Meghalaya to discuss the Inner Line Permit (ILP) issue in March.
“I don’t want to hear anything from the BJP leaders like Amit Shah or (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi because these people are not interested in strengthening the democratic system in the country. Their sole interest is to see that the whole country come under the forceful rule of one party so that they can gradually alter the whole system of democracy,” the former cabinet minister said. “We all know the BJP’s sole aim is to convert India into one language, one religion and one nation and it’s the BJP that will destroy and divide India.”
Lanong will be keeping a close eye on the upcoming West Bengal polls as he feels that if the BJP wins the state it will be the beginning of the fall of democracy in the entire country.
Meanwhile, he also attacked the Meghalaya Congress party for its turnaround on the subject of ILP.
While in power prior to 2018 the Congress declined to accept the need for ILP, but this changed in 2019 when the opposition party backed the resolution in the Meghalaya Assembly demanding ILP’s introduction.
The Congress has claimed that its about-face was down to the Centre’s passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), an argument that Lanong considers weak.
“The other North East states, including Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, got ILP a long time back and there is no link between the ILP and CAA, as misleadingly claimed by the Congress,” the UDP member said.
Since these other North East states were given the ILP, it is nonsensical for Meghalaya to be denied it.
“It is not that Meghalaya wants something peculiar that does not apply to anyone else. This is a genuine demand because the state has a long boundary with Bangladesh and is surrounded by other states and the ILP is therefore justifiable,” Lanong added.
