Shillong, April 24: Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) chief, Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit today said that his party will be in power in 2018 and assured to bring out policies that would bring hope to the people.
Basaiawmoit said this during his campaign for the 2018 Assembly elections launched from his home Nongkrem constituency at Lad Nongkrem attended by thousands of supporters despite bad weather condition.
The HSPDP president said that in 2018, there was no doubt that his party will be in the government that will bring out policies for the welfare of the people in the state.
Basaiawmoit also clarified to the people allegations leveled against him on certain issues such compulsory registration of marriage, implementation of building bye-laws and taking of surname from the father.
He said that the law on registration of marriage was the need of the hour to ensure that women abandoned by husbands get the maintenance so that the children can be given proper care, adding that the law would address the problem face by many single mothers.
On building byelaw, the Nongkrem MLA urged the people not to be misguided since he along with the people fought in August 2015 for withdrawing the building bye-law from rural areas where the State government had also agreed to implement the building bye-law only in areas within 50 square km after reducing it by 124 square km out of 174 square km under Shillong master plan area.
But the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (MUDA) has to implement the building bye-law after a ruling passed by the Meghalaya High Court on December 16, 2015.
On false allegation that the Nongkrem MLA wanted children to take surname from the father, he urged the people not to belief by such cheap political proganda.
Meanwhile, Basaiawmoit also slammed the Congress-led government of indulging in corruption while pointing out leakage of revenue worth hundreds of crores. The HSPDP is also opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, that the BJP-led NDA government is attempting to pass in Parliament, since the objective of Bill is to provide Indian citizenship to minority communities — Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan who had entered India illegally to escape religious persecution — even if they do not provide the required documents.
Basaiawmoit also talked about the problems faced by many households that own no land where majority of the households are landless.
“There is a claim that land in our state belonged to the people but only 24 per cent households in our state own land,” the HSPDP leader told the gathering.
Basaiawmoit also urged the people to vote for people, who are lawmakers who can fight for the cause of the people, not “samaritans” representatives.