Hands of outside forces: Mukul
SHILLONG: In a renewed attempt to displace Dr Mukul Sangma the dissident Congress legislators have reportedly projected Speaker Charles Pyngrope as their new leader instead of DD Lapang.
The decision to project Pyngrope as their leader is being seen as a face-saving formula of the dissident legislators after party high command refused to re-install Lapang as Chief Minister.
Party sources revealed that the decision to jettison Lapang came after GAD Minister LA Hek and Pyngrope set the condition that they would return to the dissident camp only if it was unanimously agreed to submit the list of three leaders to AICC president Sonia Gandhi as an alternative to Dr Mukul Sangma as the new CLP leader.
Hek and Pyngorpe were in favour of recommending the names of Deputy Chief Minister Rowell Lyngdoh, Speaker himself besides that of DD Lapang, apparently to leave the final decision in the hands of Sonia Gandhi.
It is learnt that the Speaker and the GAD Minister were unhappy after some dissident MLAs decided to exclude the names of Pyngrope and Rowell Lyngdoh at the last minute.
The anti-Mukul group had initially insisted that only the name of the Lapang should be forwarded to the AICC president as the solitary choice of new leader to replace Dr Mukul, if the party high command takes a call to bring about the change of leadership, party sources added.
Repeated attempts to contact Pyngrope failed as he did not respond to calls on his mobile phone.
Meanwhile, Chief Minsiter Dr Mukul Sangma, Lapang and MPCC president Friday Lyngdoh held a meeting at the latter’s residence at Mawkhar here on Monday night.
Lapang was the first to come out of the meeting, while the Chief Minister continued to have tete-a-tete with the MPCC president for a fairly long time.
Nothing could be gathered as to what transpired at the meeting as none of the leaders was ready to divulge anything.
When asked for his views on the continuing dissident activity, a visibly upset Dr Mukul Sangma said, “They are wasting the productive time of the Government and are becoming an obstacle to the growth and development of the State. There has to be a public outcry on the issue.” Dr Sangma said he and his officers have been trying hard to proceed on a mission mode on the Integrated Basin Development project for generating livelihoods but said his rivals are bent on stalling all such progressive initiatives. “These repeated attempts to destabilise the government are dangerous as the proceedings are controlled by people from outside the State,” Dr Sangma said, adding that the AICC also should be able to enforce in Meghalaya what they utter in Delhi about intra-party discipline and clean politics.