Basaiawmoit’s comments came in response to Meghalaya CM Sangma’s statement yesterday saying the government has not been able to make the report public .
The Voice of the People’s Party (VPP) on Saturday mounted a blistering attack on the Conrad Sangma-led Meghalaya government over the prolonged delay in releasing the expert committee report on the state’s Reservation policy
Ardent Miller Basaiawmo, President of VPP, one of Meghalaya’s most vocal and boisterous political leaders, accused CM Conrad Sangma of belittling the issue by talking about the weight and size of the report instead of focusing on the content and the urgency of the report.
Basaiawmoit’s comments came in response to CM Sangma’s statement yesterday saying the government has not been able to make the report public even after six months of its submission because of the sheer size and weight of the report.
CM Sangma said that the report weighs at least 200 kgs and has at least 5000 pages, which is why it could be flown in and the state government has now sent a special vehicle to bring it.
The VPP has ridiculed this explanation, arguing that the effectiveness of a policy should not be judged by the physical weight or length of a document.
Basaiawmoit said it was “very strange” to hear such an excuse from the head of the government. “I would like to thank the Chief Minister for his swift response to the demand of the Voice of the People’s Party in respect to the report of the expert committee. Even though the party feels it is rather strange to hear from the Chief Minister that the reason for the delay is that the report was too lengthy and too heavy”.
Basaiawmoit further said that this was the first time the party has heard such a justification for withholding an important policy document from the public. “Perhaps the NPP-led government determines the quality and effectiveness of a policy by the length and the weight of the policy document,” the VPP president remarked, taking a sarcastic swipe at the ruling dispensation.
He further expressed hope that the assurance given by the Chief Minister would not turn out to be an “empty promise” and that the government would make the report public without any further delay. He stressed that the reservation policy directly affects thousands of citizens and requires transparency and timely action.
The expert committee on the state reservation policy, headed by retired Justice M.C. Garg, was constituted in 2023 to review the existing reservation framework in Meghalaya. The committee submitted its report to the state government in June this year. Since then, opposition parties and civil society groups have been demanding its immediate release, arguing that continued delay only fuels speculation and undermines public confidence in the government’s commitment to reform.
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