Chaos marks plenary

Staff Correspondent

SHILLONG, July 9: A seemingly improper arrangement has caused chaos at the 67th plenary session of the North Eastern Council (NEC) held in Shillong on Monday.

The chaotic situation seems to have its origin in the venue of the session that utterly failed to accommodate a whole of invitees to the meet, including journalists.

The congestion came to such a pass that everyone in the venue was scrambling for a seat. Those at the helm of affairs for making the arrangement, according to sources, had to keep changing the arrangement over the past week. The arrangement was given the final touches on Sunday night.

The accredited media persons, who had been invited to the session, were a worried lot as they were barred from covering the inaugural speech of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, but not for security reasons. Singh chaired the session. A section wants to blame it on the Information and Public Relations Department of the NEC for the chaos.

As though to cap it all, the NEC resorted to pass the buck on the State police and DIPR for the chaotic scene. While the NEC Director of Information and Public Relations said that the State police had not allowed the media coverage, another official of the Council blamed it on the State Information and Public Relations. However, both the State police and the Meghalaya Information and Public Relations denied the allegations leveled against them by the NEC.

The NEC just provided the speech of the Union Home Minister to the journalists, maybe, as a damage-control exercise.