As the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government marked eight years in office and the state Assembly passed its latest budget, opposition Congress launched a pointed attack on the administration's development record — alleging that the headline growth numbers mask deep structural failures on the ground.
Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Vincent H. Pala said the state's real economic story is one of rising unemployment, inadequate healthcare access, and a struggling education sector, and argued that the government has failed to address the fundamental issues affecting ordinary people in Meghalaya.
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Pala led with employment data, citing figures from the NITI Aayog to challenge the government's optimistic narrative.
"The unemployment average in India is 3.2 percent. Meghalaya unemployment is 6.2 percent — Meghalaya is so high. The unemployment in rural areas is almost 9 percent and unemployment in urban areas is almost 12 percent. It is very high, and the state government has not been able to address this," he said.
Pala also took direct aim at the government's claim of 9.6% economic growth, arguing that the figure is inflated by capital expenditure funded through loans and central grants rather than reflecting genuine local economic activity.
"The money they have taken as loans, the money they got through grants from the central government — it comes from Delhi to the Secretariat and goes back to Haryana, Assam. You hardly see any contractors from Meghalaya," he said.
In one of his sharpest allegations, Pala claimed that a disproportionate share of government contracts has been funnelled to a single family, undermining the broader economic benefit the spending was meant to deliver.
"Whatever loans they have taken — more than Rs 1,000 crore — more than Rs 500 crore has been given to only one family. So the growth that he claimed is only growth on paper. That couldn't translate on the ground. That's why people are becoming very poor. Those who become rich become very rich — selected people. That's why the government sold the entire property of Meghalaya," Pala said.
The Congress leader's remarks come at a politically charged moment, with the MDA government presenting its budget as evidence of progress while the opposition seeks to frame the same period as one of missed opportunities and widening inequality.