By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The twelve NCP legislators who had merged with the National People’s Party on August 24 will continue to remain as NCP members in the House since Meghalaya Assembly Speaker Charles Pyngrope is yet to recognize the merger.
In spite of the NCP’s merger with Purno Sangma’s NPP at a large gathering at the party office in the State capital, the 12 legislators have no other choice than to remain as NCP members when the three-day House sitting begins on Wednesday.
Admitting this, Opposition Leader Conrad Sangma said on Monday that he would go to Delhi after the Session to meet the lawyers to formally firm up the merger of NCP with NPP before submitting the official papers to the Assembly Speaker.
The Assembly Speaker can accept the change of allegiance of 12 NCP legislators to NPP only if the pro-merger group provides the Speaker with official documents related to the merger meeting.
The NPP is banking on Para 4 of the Anti-Defection Law which says that two-thirds of the legislators can merge with another party.
Sources said that the Speaker would not have any problem in accepting the NCP-NPP merger since majority of NCP legislators have defected to NPP.
However, he is waiting for the official documents related to the merger, the sources added.
Sources also said that once the Speaker receives the official papers, he will notify the merger and subsequently announce the decision in the Assembly if the House is still in session.
The reason for the delay on the part of the Leader of Opposition to submit the paper related to the merger is due to the recent statement by NCP Central observer for the NE States, Robert Kharshiing, that the merger or split cannot be accepted since NCP is a national party.
According to Kharshiing, any merger or split in a national party can be legal only when it takes place at the national level and not at the state level. The same rules do not apply to regional parties, he had argued.
Notably, the general secretary of NCP, DP Tripathi, has already written a letter from Delhi urging the Speaker to take action against the 12 NCP legislators who had defected to the NPP.