‘Leadership tussle in MPCC an open secret’
SHILLONG: UDP legislator Jemino Mawthoh on Monday asserted his right to question the leadership of the Congress party.
“If the Congress themselves can question the leadership of Narendra Modi of the BJP then I am also free to question the leadership crisis in the Congress party,” Mawthoh said while reacting to the statement of the MPCC.
Mawthoh pointed out that it is an open secret that many are unhappy with the present leadership of the Congress party under Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma, and added that even in the corridors of the Secretariat there is discontentment over the style of functioning of the Chief Minister.
The UDP MLA further stated that in the last five years since Dr. Sangma took over the helms of the affairs, the internal rumblings in the Congress have become a matter of public debate.
“We have seen how Congress MLAs are campaigning for months in Delhi demanding change of leadership in the State. We have also seen how former Congress legislators – FW Momin and Augustine D Marak – were dropped from the Cabinet for campaigning against Dr. Sangma,” Mawthoh said.
He also asserted that the UDP, as a responsible Opposition, has the right to demand the resignation of the Chief Minister considering the fragile situation in the State.
On the argument of the Chief Minister that the UDP does not have the requisite number to head the Government, Mawthoh said that if one goes by the percentage of votes polled in the recent Assembly election, the Congress party also does not have the mandate to rule the State.
“Out of the total 13 lakh votes polled, the Congress could garner only around 4 lakh plus votes. Looking at this figure, the non-Congress votes is 65 per cent compared to the Congress votes which is only around 34 per cent,” Mawthoh said.
The UDP MLA reminded the Chief Minister that his party had reflected upon the issue of influx in its manifestoes.
“We have clearly spelt out in the manifestoes that the UDP would bring about a comprehensive mechanism to address the problem of influx,” Mawthoh said.
On the allegation that he has taken a U-turn on the issue of ILP, Mawthoh said that in the Committee led by late Thrang Hok Rangad, of which he was member, they had not outrightly rejected the issue of ILP.
“At that point of time, they were more inclined towards other effective mechanisms which they had elaborated upon in their recommendations,” Mawthoh said.
He said that the demand for implementation of ILP has raised its head once again since the Government failed to show commitment towards implementing the recommendations made by the Committee led by late Rangad.
“The Government had agreed in principle to implement the Comprehensive Identity Card system as a pilot project in Mawsynram on an experimental basis. But sadly this never took off,” the UDP legislator said.
He said that the chorus for implementation of the ILP has emerged because the High Level Committee (HLC) on Influx constituted at the behest of the Chief Minister had also recommended the implementation of the ILP.
It may be noted that the MPCC had on Sunday issued a statement against Mawthoh asking him not to interfere into the internal matters of the Congress party. The MPCC had, further, stated that the leadership issue was an internal issue of the Congress and advised Mawthoh ‘not to strain his brain on the internal matters of the party’.