Dissidents likely to meet Sonia, Rahul today to reiterate leadership change demand
SHILLONG: Former Chief Minister S.C. Marak along with MPCC president D.D. Lapang arrived in Delhi on Sunday evening to discuss the issue of dissidence against Chief Minister Mukul Sangma with the AICC leaders.
Marak and Lapang are likely to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi on Monday to stress the need for a change of leadership.
“We are having a meeting among ourselves and we may meet the AICC leaders on Monday,” Marak informed over phone from Delhi. However, he did not divulge the agenda of the meeting.
Sources said that several dissident Congress legislators have already arrived at the national capital.
Lapang along with Congress ministers H.D.R. Lyngdoh and Prestone Tynsong and Congress legislator Martin M. Danggo had met top AICC leaders including Sonia and Rahul in Delhi in the past and raised matters pertaining to the political situation and worsening law and order scenario in the State. They had also expressed the desire for a change of leadership.
The dissidents’ demand for a change of leadership in the State received a boost when former Chief Minister S.C. Marak admitted to differences in the Congress camp over the style and functioning of Chief Minister Mukul Sangma.
Marak, who is now in the camp of the dissidents, wanted the intervention of the AICC to settle the issue of leadership claiming that most of the Congress legislators were not willing to work under Mukul.
The Chief Minister and his loyalists had camped in Delhi last week to have a meeting with the AICC leaders including Sonia and Rahul, but in vain.
Meanwhile, claims and counter claims are being made over the numbers which both the pro and the anti Mukul camps have.
Though the pro- Mukul camp claimed that the dissident group led by Lapang has only 6 to 7 legislators, including SC Marak, there is a contrary view that the anti-Mukul camp has as many as 17 legislators and two more legislators are expected to join the camp shortly.
The anti-Mukul camp also claimed that Mukul is now left with only a few legislators who are still backing him.