We Don’t Want To Hurt Masses’ Sentiments: Conrad K Sangma

SHILLONG: Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma said there is a challenge in maintaining the status quo on the issue of the boundary with neighboring Assam. His statement comes in the wake of a lathi-charge on Meghalaya residents and MeECL staff by the Assam police personnel on Thursday in Umwali near Langpih over an electrification issue.

“This kind of incident also happened in the past. We are trying to ensure that the status quo is maintained so that the sentiments of people are not hurt. That is where the challenge lies,” Conrad K Sangma said.

The Chief Minister said Meghalaya has made a strong stand to its Assam counterpart to ensure that this kind of incident does not take place in the future.

He also said he does not think the work would resume immediately. “First, we would like to ensure that the situation normalizes and then move forward,” Conrad K Sangma stated.

When asked that there is an agreement between the two State Governments that developmental activities would not be disturbed on both sides of the inter-State boundary, the Chief Minister said, “Even when the Assam Government takes up developmental work in some areas (of dispute), sometimes people from Meghalaya oppose the implementation of such projects,” Conrad said.

According to him, these kinds of things are natural since people are very sentimental about the whole issue.

He pointed out that though such issues crop up yet the State Government is trying to ensure that developmental activities along the inter-State boundary areas are not halted.

Replying to a question that not a single high-level or Chief Minister-level meeting has been held to resolve this long-pending boundary dispute in the recent past, he said the situation has been there since the inception of the State even as he stated that it is not easy to find the right time and place to hold such meetings.

He also pointed out that there is a need to hold preliminary groundwork survey before holding discussions on the boundary disputes at the top level. However, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said that there are discussions at different levels.

Meanwhile, when asked about the documents submitted by the Meghalaya Government to substantiate its claim on 12 areas of differences, he said the past governments also were unable to resolve this issue since there were claims and counterclaims.

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