Karbi civil bodies express discontentment over lack of representation

Our Correspondent
Diphu, May 16 (EMN): The Karbi Students’ Youth Council (KSYC) and Karbi Farmer’s Association (KFA- Tinku faction) have expressed their resentment over lack of representation in state politics through a joint press conference on Sunday.

“The hill people are indignant. The hill people have elected all the five BJP candidates to the state Assembly from all the five hill constituencies, but none of the five MLAs has been given ministerial berths. No one from the Hill areas has been represented in the newly constituted state cabinet. The Hill Areas of the state have been left out. Are the Hill Areas not part of Assam? Are the Hill areas insignificant now in state politics? Are none of the five MLAs from the Hill Areas competent and capable to head a ministry in the state government? Why did the BJP nominate incompetent and incapable persons to represent the Hill Areas in the state Assembly? The BJP has nominated most obedient and compliant candidates and the hill people have been deprived of their share, their part in the government”, general secretary of KSYC, Bipul Tisso stated during the conference held at Diphu on Sunday.

Tisso also said that the Hill Areas department (HAD) is the result of the joint centre-state study on development in the Hill Areas.

“In 1965, a joint centre-state study team was constituted by the then planning commission to study the development programmes of the Hill Areas of Assam. Tarlok Singh, member of Planning Commission headed the study team and later, it came to be known as Tarlok Singh Committee. Considering that the problems of the hill districts are significantly different from those of the other parts of Assam”, the committee, among other things, suggested the constitution of a planning board for the Assam hills region and appointment of a development commissioner for the hill region of the state. That is how the Hill Areas department came into existence,” he said.

Tisso elaborated that the Hill Areas department had been compensated to the hill people of Karbi Anglong (bifurcated in 2016) and Dima Hasao for choosing to remain with Assam, when the then Meghalaya autonomous state was created in 1969. Therefore, conventionally one of the MLAs of the ruling party from the Hill Areas is inducted into the state cabinet and placed in charge of the HAD, as sub-paragraph (3) of Paragraph 14 under the sixth schedule of the Constitution empowers the governor to ‘place one of his ministers especially in charge of the welfare of the autonomous districts and autonomous regions in the state’. 

“However now a minister from the plains has been placed in charge of the HAD. It hurts the feelings of the hill people because they have strong emotional attachment with the department. One of the MLAs from the Hill Areas therefore, should and could have been inducted into the state cabinet and placed in charge of the department. Had the hill people joined Meghalaya, ministerial berths in the state cabinet of Meghalaya would have been guaranteed and the hill people would always have a share in the government,” Tisso concluded.