Sixth Schedule was a gift of the Congress to the people of North East
Shillong, Sept 20: The opposition Congress on Friday said that it would wait for the outcome of the proposed amendment of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution before taking a decision with regard to its alliance with the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) in the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC).
“We have a strategy, we have a plan…we have decided to do something at an appropriate time”, Meghalaya Congress chief Vincent Pala said. “We are not a party to join today and leave tomorrow. We are aware that the damage has been done but at the same time it cannot be you join and leave like that,” he said.
Pala reminded that the Congress’ intention of joining the NPP-led executive committee (EC) in the KHADC at that time was because of the amendment of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution. According to him, the party cannot leave halfway.
“We thought that the Sixth Schedule was the gift of the Congress to the people of the North East. When it is amended, we should have hands in it. At that time, the district council would have gone for administrator rule but we thought that why should we surrender. We thought we should not surrender but we should protect the people of Meghalaya by involving in the amendment. The amendment is in the process. It is not yet over. Discussion between the Centre and the States and district councils is in the process. So we cannot leave halfway,” he said.
“You know the pressure of the people, we know the emotions of the people but leaving the people halfway in case they are manipulated without our knowledge I think it is not fair on our part. Therefore, we are determined that come what may, we will see that the amendment should be fair, it should be beneficial to our people especially in terms of the Sixth Schedule, the gift of the Congress to the people of the North East, a Constitution within the Constitution. That is our intention,” he added.
Majority of the party workers had suggested the need to immediately pull out of the NPP-led EC in KHADC citing the alliance as the main reason for the defeat of Pala in the last MP election.
On this, Pala said, “Losing and winning elections is one part of it. We discussed today in the meeting and I expressed and I explained to them and all of them agreed to our idea as we are here to protect. We may lose the election at the beginning but we should not change our ideology. We may lose and win elections but if our ideology is firm, people will realise. We should not think too much on winning or losing elections, our intention is to protect, preserve and promote the culture of our people.”
