However, chief minister Conrad Sangma is hopeful that the NPP-led state government’s attempts to resolve the decades-old boundary dispute would affect the party’s “electoral prospects in a positive way”.
Assam has long-running border rows with four of its sister states – Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. In the past year, the Himanta Biswa Sarma government has initiated one-on- one engagements with three of these states in order to put a stop to the disputes, which date back to the colonial era. The move assumes significance given previous boundary commissions set up by the Supreme Court and Centre failed to come up with solutions.
Assam and Meghalaya had signed an agreement on March 19, 2022, in the presence of Union home minister Amit Shah to end their five-decade-old border crisis. Calling it a “historic day”, Shah said “six out of 12 points of the dispute have been resolved, which comprises nearly 70% of the boundary. The remaining six points will be resolved soon”. The two states share a 884.9 km border.
But the recent violence in Mukroh, a border village, in which five people from Meghalaya were killed had sparked a huge outrage in the tribal-majority state. Assam CM Sarma then criticised the state police, which had allegedly opened fire during a clash with suspected timber smugglers. One Assam forest guard was also killed in the incident.
While TMC may be trying to exploit the border conflict for immediate political gains, the ruling NPP has taken what is seen as a pragmatic approach to the entire issue. CM Sangma claimed at a press conference earlier this week that “previous governments (in Meghalaya) have never tried to resolve it as they understood its political implications. We however thought differently. We felt we would not be able to serve the people if we thought about political risks. We went ahead knowing the challenges and took the first step forward. It’s a process and we have started it.”
But TMC is trying to give an impression that the border pact would lead to Meghalaya losing its land to Assam. “To address the issue of unwarranted surrender of land to Assam and protect the residents in border villages, the Border MoU signed with the Government of Assam will be revoked, and a fresh set of consultations will be initiated to find a sustainable solution to the border crisis,” the TMC manifesto, released by the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, said.
“In addition, the security of residents of border villages will also be enhanced through the setting up of police check-posts in strategic locations, and prevent unwarranted firing of Mukroh-like incidents that led to the unfortunate death of innocent residents of Meghalaya,” it said.
Security measures like setting up of border posts have already been taken up by the respective state governments. But revoking the agreement will not help either side.
The CM said that the Meghalaya government has held public consultations and grassroot level meetings to find a solution to the border issue. “There is never a perfect solution but we are trying to work towards a solution. It just shows that we are the only party that is committed to the border resolution issue,” Conrad was quoted as saying by local media.
The TMC, the ruling party in West Bengal, has been trying to expand its base in Meghalaya after 12 out of 17 Congress legislators joined the party in 2021. Former CM Mukul Sangma and his family members, including his wife, daughter and younger brother are among the 52 candidates who figure in the first list announced by the party.