SHILLONG, June 5 - Eight BJP MLAs from Barak Valley, including PWD Minister Parimal Suklabaidya, travelled together by road from Guwahati to Silchar via Shillong to witness the trail of neglect the previous Congress Government has left in terms of road connectivity.
Suklabaidya said the objective of the MLAs travelling together in a convoy is to get first-hand information about the road condition. �We would get to understand the problem better by travelling together,� he said after the MLAs arrived late in the night on Friday at Assam House here.
Roads in Barak Valley remained in utter neglect during 15 years of Congress rule. The vital National Highway 44 connecting Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya to Silchar and further to Mizoram, Tripura and Manipur has been left unrepaired for the past several years.
The highway stretches for 723 km and is the only connecting road link of Barak Valley, Tripura, Mizoram with the rest of the world. But due to the poor and dangerous condition of the road, several lives have been lost with frequent accidents on the Highway over the years. Repeated plea to the Congress Government, for the road�s repair, went unheeded.
�Since I am the PWD Minister, I will gather information as much as I can about the road condition so that work to repair it can start immediately,� Suklabaidya said. He promised that NH 44 would be repaired within a year�s time.
Although the new Silchar-Guwahati train has eased much of people�s problem from Barak Valley, Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur, in terms of connectivity, however, the NH 44 still remains an important alternate path.
Meanwhile, putting at rest the speculation about the late night halt in the State Capital here, Suklabaidya said the BJP has nothing to do with the present unrest within the Congress party in Meghalaya.
�We don�t believe in breaking other party or horse trading. Had that been the case, the Vajpayee Government would not have lost by one vote,� he stated. But the BJP leader hoped that the �entire NE region would support BJP as the people did in Assam.
