Shillong, Mar 22: With the Meghalaya Assembly elections about 9-10 months away, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has begun its exercise to prep up for the campaign in the state, starting with drawing its manifesto. BJP state president Ernest Mawrie on Tuesday said one of the poll promises of the party is to review the state reservation policy on economical lines wherein 40% should be reserved for the downtrodden and the weaker section.

This is in contrast to the recent demand of review of State reservation policy wherein the demand is to rationalise the allocation of reservation between the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo people.

Announcing their decision review the state reservation policy as part of their election manifesto for the upcoming 2023 Assembly elections along with implementation of the Inner Line Permit (ILP), Mawrie said, “The party supports the demand of our senior MLA AL Hek that 40% should be reserved for the downtrodden and the weaker section.”

Stating that reviewing of the reservation policy has been a long pending demand of the people, Mawrie said, “This demand will be part of our election manifesto.”

On the rationale behind the tweaked reservation policy, he said 80 percent of the population in the state comprises of farmers and most of the people are BPL. “Therefore in order to uplift (their condition), we have to provide jobs for them and this policy will help to solve this issue,” he said.

On the issue of ILP, Mawrie said, “Till today we are with the people. We want the aspiration of the people to be fulfilled so we are supporting the demand (of ILP).”

According to him, the BJP MLAs are also part of the resolution unanimously passed by the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly in 2019, urging the Centre to immediately implement the ILP system in Meghalaya.