SHILLONG:
Opposition All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) national spokesperson, Saket Gokhale, on October 11 accused the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government of openly lying to the people of Meghalaya.
In a letter to cabinet minister and National People’s Party (NPP) leader James PK Sangma, he said ministers don’t think twice before openly lying in the hope that the people will not realise and take their word at face value.
The letter comes a day after James had asked the opposition to do proper homework before alleging that the NPP had failed to file its election expenditure report for the 2018 assembly elections and also said that the AITC could not claim to be voice of people just by hijacking some of the MLAs into its fold.
Gokhale, however, said the opposition is determined to tell the truth to the people and ensure that they’re not cheated by the falsehoods of state’s ministers.
He further reminded that in 2020 when Sangma was the power minister, the government had issued a tender for installing smart electricity meters in households across the state.
Of the contracts awarded, the winning bidder was a consortium consisting of Chinese smart meter company Inhemeter.
Stating that the AITC had voiced concerns that installing Chinese smart meters was a major security risk as these could be hacked, Gokhale said he had written a letter to the Deputy Chief Minister on July 29, this year and in response, he said that the REC Ltd under the Government of India is the technical agency for smart electricity meters and it will check whether this material is genuine or not.
He, however, said, “On February 25, 2021, (more than a year before the above comments by Tynsong), you as the Power Minister had proudly tweeted a picture of the Chinese Inhemeter smart meter that was installed at your own residence.”
He further asked, “Could you please, therefore, explain how there was a Chinese Inhemeter Smart Meter installed at your residence in February 2021 when the Deputy CM claimed in July 2022 said that these meters are yet to be approved by REC/Govt of India?”
The AITC leader reiterated in the letter that the NPP has not filed its mandatory election expenditure reports with the Election Commission of India for the assembly elections in Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Mizoram for the year 2018, for Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand for the year 2019, for Bihar for the year 2020, for Assam, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal for the year 2021, and for Lok Sabha elections, 2019. The NPP was supposed to file these within 75 days of Assembly elections and 90 days of Lok Sabha elections.