Amid renewed political focus on the unresolved Meghalaya-Assam boundary dispute ahead of the upcoming Shillong parliamentary bye-election, Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee president and State Congress-recommended nominee Vincent H. Pala questioned what he described as “five-star hotel” discussions between the governments, asserting that the sensitive border issue cannot be resolved unless local stakeholders, traditional heads and residents living in the affected areas are directly involved in the dialogue process.
Pala maintained that people residing in the border belts continue to suffer due to the unresolved dispute and warned that any agreement reached without public participation would fail to address the concerns of ordinary citizens.
“If proper channel is taken then the dispute with Assam can be solved, but you have to take the stakeholders into confidence. Example, Chief Ministers of Meghalaya and Assam are good friends…. The question of give and take should be discuss with the people in the border, also, apart from the government, I don’t say the government will not work,” Pala said.
“The government has to work, the people has to agree and the traditional heads like the doloi, headmen should be taken into confidence and then discussed. Only you go to star hotel, and talk and discuss, the problem will never be solved because the farmers will face the same problem and doloi and headmen faces the same problem, people who drives car from Meghalaya to Assam will face same problem as long as you don’t take them into confidence,” he added.
Calling the boundary issue “very sensitive”, Pala said confidence-building measures between communities on both sides of the border were essential for any meaningful settlement.
“So you have to make the people in Assam confident and Meghalaya confident that after all we are all Indian and we live together. It may be here and there. Boundary is very sensitive and it has to be solved through dialogue, it has to be solved through a system that you will take every body into confidence,” he said.
Questioning the outcome of the first phase of the Meghalaya-Assam boundary settlement covering six areas of difference, Pala claimed that the agreement had failed to adequately address concerns of ordinary citizens residing in the disputed regions.
“The six areas of difference taken up on the first phase, I don’t believe it is resolved. They have property in those areas and is dissolved for their property only, not for the public property. Government have five star hotel and they have land here and there and it is so the problem amongst themselves just to solve to their problem, not to the public problem, solving your problem, or individual problem,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean solving public problem,” Pala added.
