Meghalaya: Congress accusations are unfounded, says NPP

SHILLONG

The National People’s Party pointed out that the recent allegations of the Congress are heavily unfounded considering all their queries were answered systematically during the Assembly session.

In a press release, spokesperson and party legislator Marcuise N Marak said, “It seems to us that they are in a hangover of having lost the no-confidence motion on which they so heavily banked upon to attack the government. Considering their misfortune of having proven themselves wrong, the Congress has reached record lows of trying to find additional issues to stay relevant in politics, without thinking of the welfare of the people of the state.”

The release also highlighted that during the Assembly session, regarding the power ministry, George B. Lyngdoh had spoken about non-functional electric meters in rural areas and high electricity bills due to the same. Lyngdoh had stated that consumers are not aware and hence an exercise from the department was necessary to check into faulty defective meters.

To this, Minister-in-charge of power James Sangma had replied, that to solve this long-standing issue, the Government was looking to improve the billing efficiency in the State and a way of doing it was through introduction of smart meters. Sangma added that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) had financed the project through which there would be introduction of smart meters by which 100 per cent billing efficiency would be achieved.

"The NPP-led MDA government stays committed to showing the path on how to bring billing efficiency through the smart meter project," said the release.

"Regarding the Saubhagya Scheme, the state government has repeatedly issued necessary clarifications to the Congress, but the opposition continues to beat the drum of corruption regarding the scheme. To be clear, the Congress in its term did not even try to bring this scheme to the people of Meghalaya, despite knowing that such a scheme would be beneficial to the economically vulnerable," Marak, who is also the government's chief whip, said in the release.

"The Congress is a party which has defaulted on multiple accounts concerning fulfilling the promises made to the people," he said adding that the party should raise issues after informing itself rather than trying to cover up "the stench of their past, which appears to be biting them as of now."

(Edited by Christopher Gatphoh)