The Voice of the People Party (VPP) on Friday congratulated the people of Meghalaya for the success in forcing the MDA government in giving an assurance and in making a public declaration that the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 be repealed.
“This exemplifies the importance of the role played by conscious and conscientious citizens in democracy that hold the government of the day accountable to the people,” VPP vice president Dr KH Shen said in a statement.
He said it may be reminded that the MDA government ensured that the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming (Repealing) Bill 2022 introduced by Edelbert Nongrum, MLA of North Shillong Constituency in the just concluded session of the Assembly was comprehensively defeated.
He said, one wonders the real intention of this Government, if the announcement is well intended, a special session of the Assembly has to be convened specifically to repeal the Act. But this entails unnecessary and wasteful spending of public money which this government could have easily avoided had they were competent, prudent and sagacious enough in making public policy.
Dr Shen said the repealing of the Gaming Act, 2021 through the Ordinance route would be nothing but an eyewash. This amount to fooling the people of the state as unless approved by the Assembly within six months the ordinance would ceases to operate thereby the Gaming Act stand revived and re-operationalised.
To avoid the messy situation such as this, he said the VPP calls upon the people of the state to be conscious and responsible in electing the representatives in the coming Assembly elections. Another mistake in 2023 will further push the state down towards the nadir of development and progress from which it would be extremely difficult to revive and restore the state.