SHILLONG:
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma has maintained that the government will pursue the border issue and take it to the logical conclusion.
Hinting at the Mukroh incident, he said, “We have had major setbacks to the talks in terms of those incidents but that does not mean that the talks will stop.”
The Supreme Court has stayed the interim order of the High Court relating to the operation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Assam and Meghalaya with regards to physical demarcation and erection of boundary posts between the two states.
He reminded that they had approached the Supreme Court and as they expected, the Supreme Court had stayed it
“Firstly, it has gone as per the indications and as per the expectations that we (the government) had. The second phase is moving. We had a lot of challenges in the past and hence, we have to smoothen out those challenges and those incidents that happened. Until and unless, we are not able to move forward from that, we will not be able to take the discussion forward,” Sangma said.
In the sidelines of another programme, the CM said that all the discussions will proceed as per the MoU.
Uniform Civil Code
Commenting on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), Sangma said the National People’s Party will not accept it if there are changes to the cultural practices of the state of Meghalaya.
“For us as a party, we are clear that the Uniform Civil Code is not acceptable to the National People’s Party (NPP) or at least, there should be certain areas of exemptions, but anything that happens should affect the culture and the way of life of the people of Meghalaya,” he said.
He observed that the Uniform Civil Code will have a negative impact on the culture and the way of life of tribes of the NE and specially among the matrilineal tribes, in the state of Meghalaya.