Mukul Sangma cuts the birthday cake in the city on Wednesday. Picture by UB Photos
Shillong, April 21: Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma today broke down in tears before concluding his address on the first anniversary of his government, asserting that he would remain the state’s chief executive till 2013.
Sangma, otherwise branded as a “stern” political leader, broke down as he was about to end his speech at a hotel here. “...I thank the people for their prayers...,” Sangma said, as he addressed a gathering of politicians, government officials and reporters.
The chief minister celebrated his first anniversary in office, which also happened to be his 46th birthday, amid a brewing political storm. Most of his party colleagues stayed away from the official function. A booklet — 360 Degree Development in 365 Days — highlighting the achievements of the government, was also released.
While 13 Congress legislators, including cabinet ministers, were present, Sangma’s detractors were reportedly working hard to provide more momentum to their effort to oust him from the chief minister’s office.
However, although the beleaguered chief minister exuded confidence that he would retain office till the 2013 Assembly polls, he refused to give a direct reply when a reporter asked him about his current position in the Congress Legislature Party (CLP).
“These are internal affairs of the party and I will not speak to the media about the developments that take place inside,” Sangma said, adding that there was an “inherent system” within the party to deal with the leadership issue.
On the challenges he had faced during the past year, Sangma listed the May 14 Langpih incident, where four villagers were killed by alleged Assam police personnel, and the lack of resources as the foremost.
The chief minister said he had inherited a government with “empty coffers”.
“We are making progress in settling the inter-state boundary dispute with Assam and in the recent budget session, a government resolution was passed for setting up of a boundary commission to facilitate early settlement of the pending problem,” he said.
Alleging that in the past many were “playing politics” with the issue, Sangma said, “Once people stop playing politics, we can surely resolve the impasse.”
On corruption, Sangma said his government would soon table a bill in the Assembly entailing social audit on all government schemes. “With people’s involvement through social auditing of all schemes and programmes, we can deter those who want to indulge in corrupt practices,” he said, while adding that the legislation on social auditing would go a long way in combating corruption.
The chief minister also said he would soon make the state vigilance commission an independent body to ensure better transparency. As of today, the chief secretary is also the state vigilance commissioner.
Conceding that an unstable government would not be able to provide stable policies and programmes, Sangma said, “If people concentrate on developing the state, they will not have time to create political instability.”
Speaking on militancy, Sangma said there were multifaceted reasons behind youth taking up arms. “Although they know they would achieve nothing out of militancy, it is disturbing to note that the youth are joining armed groups,” he said, while soliciting people’s support to fight militancy.
Sangma said the youth should be trained to make them employable in different sectors while stressing that his government’s focus was to develop agriculture and its allied activities in order to economically empower the people from the grassroots.
Asked what his birthday resolution was, Sangma said, “To honour the mandate of the people and serve them.” He was quick to point out that politicians did not have “personal” birthday resolutions.
Sangma took over from D.D. Lapang on April 20 last year and his government was the fourth since the last Assembly elections, held in March 2008.