Thousands of people took to the streets of Shillong on Thursday as the Voice of the People’s Party (VPP) organised its much-anticipated “March to Secretariat”, mounting a major show of political strength against the Meghalaya government over what it described as anti-tribal policies, rising unemployment, environmental concerns and a host of unresolved public issues. The demonstration, one of the largest organised by the Opposition party in recent months, came ahead of the Autumn Session of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, signalling an escalation of the VPP’s political campaign against the ruling National People’s Party (NPP)-led government.
Supporters from different parts of the State capital converged near the Meghalaya Secretariat amid heavy security deployment before marching around the Secretariat, raising anti-government slogans and later assembling outside the Additional Secretariat. Led by VPP president Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit, the march sought to convey public dissatisfaction over the government’s functioning and its alleged failure to address repeated demands raised by the Opposition.
Addressing mediapersons after the rally, Basaiawmoit said the party had been compelled to take to the streets after its concerns were repeatedly ignored by the government.
“Why do we have to hit the street because repeatedly we have been denied, repeatedly we have been ignored by the government when we raised issues,” he said.
Describing the march as a success, Basaiawmoit said the spontaneous turnout reflected growing public support for the party.
“Who can raise this much of crowd spontaneously without spending single paisa. Shall I not be happy? Shall I not be satisfied. We believe the message should convey,” he said.
He said the peaceful march was intended to communicate public resentment over the government’s handling of several key issues and reiterated that the party would not submit any fresh memorandum, arguing that previous representations had gone unanswered.
“We are happy to see the response of the people as far as the peaceful march is concern, we conduct this peaceful march to convey a message to the government that we are not happy with the style of the functioning of the government on many issues, those issues have been highlighted from time to time. We will wait for sometime what will be the response of the government. We have decided as a party not to submit any memorandum to the government because everytime we have written to the government on many issues but it is unfortunate that the government never respond to us in writing or call us for discussion. We don’t feel the need to submit the fresh memorandum or petition to the government on these issues which the government itself is aware of,” the VPP chief said.
He said the scale of participation was remarkable, particularly as the rally was held on a working day.
“Crowd is huge, spontaneous specially in a working day like that,” he said.
Basaiawmoit also questioned the functioning of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, alleging that Opposition legislators were not given adequate time to debate issues affecting the public, while members of the ruling party were allotted more time during discussions.
“Limited time alloted to the opposition members during the Assembly, how space is being taken by the members belonging to the ruling party. The MLAs from ruling party gets more time than the members belonging to the opposition, so we hardly get enough and sufficient time to discuss various issues. We are not shying away from debating, we represents fact before the government,” he said.
The Autumn Session of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly is scheduled to commence on August 24.
Basaiawmoit said the VPP had identified several issues to be raised during the session but expressed dissatisfaction over the manner in which Assembly proceedings were conducted.
“Definately, I have listed many issues which will be taken up in the Assembly but as you are aware time is limited inside the Assembly. The way they conduct the Assembly is not encouraging, it is not acceptable to us because we have been even denied the chance to raise important issue on the floor of the House,” he added.
The march concluded peacefully under tight security, with the VPP asserting that the unprecedented public participation had sent a strong political message to the government ahead of the forthcoming Assembly session.
