State Congress to abide by party high command directive
From Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi: Taking strong exception to the ‘elections’ being held by the State Congress to choose candidates for the 2013 Assembly polls in the State, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has asked the Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) to stop such exercise forthwith.
Seriously upset over the developments where the names of candidates have been declared from some Assembly seats even more than a year before the Assembly polls, the AICC has sent a communication to the MPCC asking it to stop such exercise being held mainly in East Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills.
Meanwhile, in view of the AICC communiqué, the MPCC has also discussed the same and decided to abide by the direction of the party high command, party sources said here on Thursday.
The state party unit would also communicate its decision to stop the ‘elections’ to the AICC formally in a couple of days, the sources said.
Earlier, there were reports that without the sanction from the AICC some lower party units have held sham elections at the lower level and committed tickets even to some non-Congress candidates.
In the absense of the MPCC president Friday Lyngdoh, who is undergoing medical treatment in Vellore, acting president Deborah C Marak had justified the decision to hold the election at the block level to select candidates for the next Assembly elections slated for 2013. It is only an inner-party exercise to ensure quality among ticket aspirants, she had said.
Following this initial exercise, she said that the selection of the party candidates is subject to normal process of scrutiny which also includes scrutiny by the State Election Committee (SEC) of the PCC, while adding that after the scrutiny by the PCC, the same list would be forwarded to the AICC president for final approval.