Shillong, Feb 1: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Tuesday said the state government will continue to support the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) and ensure its financial matters are streamlined.
“As a government, we would like to see that the GHADC streamline its working and like we have supported the GHADC in the past to pay salaries and other areas that were there, we will continue to support this EC also in every way possible so that the finances of the council can be streamlined,” Sangma told reporters here.
On the allegation of nepotism behind the election of the new GHADC chief Rakesh Sangma, the chief minister said that the state government tries to stay away from internal matters of the GHADC as it is an autonomous body.
“There was no question of any interference from my side. I have only facilitated the entire process by being the president of the party and that was my only role to play in that,” he said.
Sangma said the members of the district council had recently met him and expressed that they would like to change the leadership.
“Based on that, I left the decision to them on who should be leading because I told them that if I select then if some other problems come up then you will come back to me saying that the person you had selected had created a problem so I said let the selection of the CEM be through a democratic process – so we left the decision making to the MDCs to decide who should lead them and based on that they themselves they came with a consensus name of the chairperson then Mr Rakesh Sangma and based on that they went ahead with it,” he said
When asked, Sangma said there are many issues regarding the style of functioning and in regards to the overall financial issues that were there in the council.
“The fact that there were some funds that were diverted from tied funds was diverted for other purposes. These kinds of things led to a bit of concern among them. I played my role as president to ensure the NPP was stable but the rest of the decision was made by the MDCs,” he said.
Whether action will be taken against the former CEM Benedic Marak, Sangma said it is not for him to take that call as there is a disciplinary committee which will go according to the process. “Whatever has to be done it will be the disciplinary committee of the party that will take the action,” he added.
