Border issue: VPP demands ‘white paper’

“(We) would strongly urge upon the Government to issue a white paper on the present arrangement and agreement reached upon between the two states,” VPP chief Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit said in a statement.

Stating that it is too early to celebrate the signing of the boundary agreement between Meghalaya and Assam, Basaiawmoit said at this stage it is very difficult to say whether this agreement is historic or indeed a disaster.

“Though we would like to give this government the benefit of the doubt, however the rush to reach an agreement without being transparent, only fuel speculations,” he stated.

He said there are many pertinent questions that need to be asked, firstly, why is the government not willing to place the details of the arrangement in the public domain adding secondly, whether the stakeholders have been informed about the entire process before finalizing the agreement?

He further said there is also an effort on the part of the present dispensation to convey to the people of the State, that after fifty years of Statehood it has finally managed to settle this boundary problem. “However, if we go by what the media reports it is a different story altogether,” he said.

The VPP president said that the people are also made to believe that the Meghalaya does not have a boundary ever since the State was carved out of the State of Assam. And the present agreement between the two states i.e., Meghalaya and Assam was made possible due to the consideration and efforts of the NDA government at the centre.

“The fact remains that no State can become a unit of the Indian federation without a proper boundary. The territory for the autonomous State of Meghalaya was defined by the Assam re-organization act 1969 and the boundary of the full-fledged State of Meghalaya has been defined by the North east reorganization act 1971. Therefore, the narrative created by both the State and the Central government that Meghalaya does not have a proper boundary is misleading and baseless,” he said.

Moreover, he said while on one hand we are witnessing  a dialogue on the border issue between the two States, on the other hand there is a continuous and unrelenting encroachment by the State of Assam into the territories  of Meghalaya.

Meanwhile, Basaiawmoit said it is also quite interesting to notice that the President of the HSPDP who claims to be a follower of the  (L) H S Lyngdoh who never accepted the term “disputed land” in his argument, went on record to claim that 12 disputed areas were not even parts of Meghalaya.

Even pressure groups who once hailed this government, are now questioning and expressing their apprehensions, on the manner in which the present pact was signed between the  two States, he stated.

By Our Reporter