SHILLONG:
The opposition Voice of the People Party (VPP) on Monday demanded that the Director of School Education and Literacy immediately withdraw the show cause notice issued to the principal of the Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Jowai for allowing students to play the party’s song.
In a statement, VPP spokesperson Dr Batskhem Myrboh said, “The Party, therefore, demands that the officer should immediately withdraw his notice and instead should offer an unconditional apology not only to the Principal of the school concerned for the harassment but also to the general public for his attempt to infringe upon the citizens’ right to make choices.”
Stating that the show cause notice was unwarranted,” Myrboh said, it is fatuous, condemnable and more importantly worrisome as the development revealed the predicament that plagues the bureaucracy in the state.
He said that the bureaucracy is supposed to be the most “rational element in the government” with the ability to perform with “highest degree of efficiency,” but this notice reveals two possibilities. “The first possibility is that the officer concerned took the initiative on his own and this could be due to his total lack of knowledge and understanding of the Meghalaya Services (Conduct) Rules, 2019 or his over enthusiastic to impress upon the party(ies) ruling the state for reasons best known to him,” he said.
He also said that in the show cause notice the officer concerned failed to cite any rule which the principal is alleged to have violated adding “In fact, there is no rule to fix responsibility upon a government servant for the action of the students who are not governed by the Rules of 2019.”
Further, Myrboh said that the second possibility is that the officer in question issued a notice at the directive of his political masters or some terrified politicians.
“It is undoubtedly, some elements are petrified with the response of the people including children in the state to the call of the Voice of the People Party for clean politics. Such elements have the desire to find ways and means to intimidate the people to stop the spread of people’s love for the VPP.”
Meanwhile, the VPP leader said that whatever the possibility is, the issuance of the notice reflects that there is a section in the Meghalaya bureaucracy that is incompetent, irrational and spineless.
“One wonders what will be the future of the state of Meghalaya when we have such officers at the helm of affairs,” he concluded.