Union Home Minister Amit Shah has yet again postponed the meeting with the chief ministers of Assam and Meghalaya to March 15, for finalizing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) seeking to resolve the six of the 12 ‘areas of difference’.
Informing this on Wednesday, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, “The Union Home Minister called me yesterday and requested if the meeting can be postponed to March 15.”
The tripartite meeting was supposed to be held on March 9.
“In fact, they had earlier requested that I should get there during the daytime because they wanted to go ahead with the large meeting and programme and discuss in a very detailed manner. I accordingly made plans that we will discuss with the Assembly Speaker and figure out how to go forward but that did not happen and the Union Home Minister informed me because of his schedule, he requested that the meeting can be postponed to March 15,” Sangma said.
Sangma informed that both he and the Assam Chief Minister had no problem with the decision to postpone the meeting to March 15 but he had mentioned that during this time, he would still be having an Assembly session.
“So we will just wait for the final confirmation. As I said my expectation is within this month of March, we should be having the meeting either on March 15 or on March 18 or somewhere during that period, it is the question of the convenience of the Home Ministry, the Assam CM and myself so we are just waiting for the final day,” the chief minister further stated.
Meanwhile, the chief minister said the state government is waiting for further discussion with the Ministry of Home Affairs on the Memorandum of Understanding signed between Meghalaya and Assam for resolving six out of twelve areas of difference shared between the two states.
"The details of this dialogue will be shared at an appropriate time," Sangma assured while replying to a query raised by Congress MLA Ampareen Lyngdoh in the Assembly.
A joint Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Chief Ministers of Assam and Meghalaya on January 29 which was submitted to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on January 31, for examination and consideration of the MHA.
Sangma also informed that there will be a final agreement to be signed by the two states when AITC MLA from Umroi George B Lyngdoh demanded the MoU to be made public.
The Chief Minister said he has decided to refrain from giving micro details of the MoU pending the signing of the final agreement.
