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Shillong, Sept. 4: The Opposition in Meghalaya will look to corner the Mukul Sangma government during the three-day autumn session of the Assembly commencing from tomorrow.
The issues which the Opposition will take up include education, where schoolteachers have been coming out onto the streets to demand salary hike and arrears, the inter-state boundary dispute with Assam, the law and order situation and influx.
While regretting that the government has chosen to hold the session for only three days, Opposition leader Conrad K. Sangma said the legislators from his bench would try their best to raise most of the important issues within these limited days.
Shillong has been witnessing a spate of rallies and sit-ins by various teaching associations demanding salary hike, pension benefits, arrears and the like.
Another issue which will dominate the proceedings of the House is influx in the face of a demand from several pressure groups to impose the inner-line permit (ILP) in the state.
While chief minister Mukul Sangma had apparently rejected the idea of introducing the ILP in the state, the pressure groups have asked legislators cutting across party lines to push for the implementation of the ILP.
The groups believe that the permit system will curb the unabated influx. However, the chief minister had maintained that his government would come up with a “mechanism”, which would be “stronger” than the ILP.
Yesterday, around 10 pressure groups, while staging a demonstration, refused to buy the arguments of the chief minister and have asked the Assembly to emulate Manipur in passing a resolution for the introduction of the ILP.
The state unit of the BJP asked the legislators to have thorough deliberations on influx and price rise as it believed that these twin issues affected the common people.
“We have enough laws to check influx. It has to be ensured that the government implements them to safeguard the people,” BJP general secretary Dipayan Chakraborty said.
He also said the Opposition legislators should take on the government on the issue of price rise, which has dislocated people’s lives.
The state recorded the maximum rise in the prices of essential commodities in 2011-12. But people hardly complained.
The government has drawn flak from various quarters for keeping a session for only three days. Demands have also been made to extend the session to allow meaningful debates to take place in the Assembly.
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