SHILLONG: The war of words between Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma and Paul Lyngdoh continued on Saturday with the former cautioning the UDP working president to refrain from making rhetoric statements.
Lyngdoh had on Friday termed the Cabinet Ministers in the Dr Sangma-led MUA-II government as mere “muster rolls” with no authority.
“He (Lyngdoh) knows best how many muster rolls he has appointed in various Government departments during his time,” Dr Sangma said.
Taking exception to the statement, Forest and Environment Minister Prestone Tynsong said that in making such statements, the UDP working president was perhaps portraying his own position as a cabinet minister.
“It is really sad if the UDP working president was treated like a muster roll when he was a Minister,” Tynsong said.
Rubbishing Lyngdoh’s claim, the Forest Minister said the Cabinet members under the leadership of Dr Sangma have got their own responsibilities and assignments and it is totally misleading to say that the Ministers in the present Government are ‘muster rolls’ who are not allowed to take their own decisions.
“We all work as one collective force for the interest of the State. It is true that we take collective decisions in the Cabinet when it relates to policy matters or to any major decisions of the Government. This is a collective responsibility of any Cabinet,” Lyngdoh said adding that the Chief Minister never bulldozed his opinions on others.
Commenting on the issue of the extension of the term of the GHADC by six months, he said that the Cabinet had a detailed discussion before arriving at a decision on the matter. The Forest Minister also attacked Lyngdoh stating that during the latter’s tenure as the Urban Affairs Minister the “major blunder” of leasing out the land upon which the office of the Shillong Municipal Board stood at Jail Road to HM Cement Limited was committed.
“He (Lyngdoh) leased out the land without taking the approval of the Cabinet assuming that the land belonged to the Municipal Board. But after I took over as the Urban Affairs Minister, we had gone into the details of this agreement and found out that it was Revenue (department’s) land,” he said. “I immediately rectified the lapses by taking permission from the Revenue department to lease the land. I also got the approval of the Cabinet since it was a major decision,” Tynsong added.