Congress MP Gourav Gogoi on Tuesday slammed the Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Meghalaya chief minister Conrad K Sangma for signing the border agreement without taking the people into confidence. He said signing of MoU between these two states was a “mere photo-op”.
Addressing media persons, Gogoi said, “It (border issue) cannot be decided by two chief ministers sitting in private rooms because the affected people are living in those areas and they have to be taken into confidence. It is not their personal, they are not talking about the boundary between their homes, it is the boundary of two states and I think it is quite arrogant of them to think without taking the people on the ground into confidence. Just by mere sitting in some private rooms somewhere in Delhi or in Taj Vivanta in Guwahati that they can just alter the boundaries as they feel.”
He also said that it was highly unfortunate when the two chief ministers were signing agreements, there were conflicts and shootings on the border.
“It is the failure of both governments and both the chief ministers and it shows how the signing was a ‘mere photo-op’ as there are much more serious issues to be resolved. But unfortunately in today’s era, chief ministers and our prime minister have started this politics of photo-op.”
Congress accuses Assam CM of arm-twisting his neighbouring CM into signing something that they don’t want
Gogoi also accused the Assam chief minister of arm-twisting his neighbouring chief ministers into signing something that they don’t want for the sake of getting “TRP”.
“Our Assam chief minister craves TRP and if his name does not come out in the newspaper regularly, he feel kind of anxiety and sometimes he may arm twist his neighbouring chief ministers into signing something that they don’t want so that he gets his TRP to show that as NEDA chairman he has managed to achieve something. I don’t know if this applies in this particular case but I hear often that this is the case. Therefore, chief ministers of other states have to be strong and champion their own people and their own land and not be arm twisted by those sitting in Dispute or by those sitting in Delhi or Nagpur,” he said.
Congress vouches for boundary commission to resolve boundary problem
Meanwhile, Congress chief Vincent H Pala said the party has always maintained the need to have a boundary commission to resolve this long pending problem.
“The commission will go to the villages, they will meet the headmen, the secretaries, the Syiems, the Dollois and different people and then make a decision. It is not like what the MDA government is doing, they just met a few supporters and said here is the signing of the agreement. However, the commission we are talking about will do an exercise of 3-4 years and not only 3-4 months,” he said.
He informed that he had also written to the Prime Minister for setting up of the boundary commission to solve the border issue.
Asked on the setting up of regional committees which went to border areas to seek the opinions of the residents, Shillong Lok Sabha MP, Vincent H. Pala said that it consists of politicians but the boundary involves culture, history and geography.
“A regional committee consisting of a mere MLA or a politician does not know the history, culture. That is possible only if we take the Dolloi, the Syiem, headmen, Nokmas,” Pala said.
According to the Shillong Lok Sabha MP, they will solve the problems of a few politicians.