TMC Leaders Demand Repeal of Assam-Meghalaya Border Agreement

Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs from Meghalaya staged a protest outside the Parliament on Tuesday demanding repeal of the Assam-Meghalaya border agreement and the inclusion of Garo and Khasi languages in the eighth schedule of the Constitution.

Reiterating their demands, the TMC MPs protested outside the Parliament by holding placards and raising slogans.

TMC leader Mukul Sangma said, “We are trying to draw the attention of the Government of India to take cognisance of the sentiments of people of the state and scrap the Assam-Meghalaya border agreement.”

He further said, “But then, resolution for any issue is intended to create an enabling environment for the future; a conducive environment to enable people to live in a mutual coexistence. The agreement which has been arrived at is against the sentiment, wishes and acceptance of the people of Meghalaya.”

Assam shares a 2,743 km boundary with Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and West Bengal. It is locked in border disputes with Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.

The two states had in March decided to end their five-decade-old border dispute in six of the 12 contested locations along the 884.9-km boundary that often led to tensions between them.

“We're demanding inclusion of Garo & Khasi in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. I'm going to raise this issue in Zero Hour today in Parliament,” said TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay.

As per the Rajbhasha's official website, 21 languages are a part of the eighth schedule including Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Maithili, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

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