SHILLONG: Though there are many potential leaders, there will not be any tussle for the post of Chief Minister once Mukul Sangma is removed, according to the dissident camp.
Asked about his opinion if majority of MLAs want him to be the next chief minister, the former Chief Minister SC Marak, who is currently with the dissidents said, “If MLAs want me to be their leader, I have to see the situation and if they want Lapang or any other senior leader to be the next Chief Minister, we will elect the leader accordingly”.
The delegation consisting of Marak, MPCC president DD Lapang and senior minister HDR Lyngdoh met the Congress president Sonia Gandh in Delhi on August 27 and discussed the issue of unhappiness of the legislators over the style of functioning of the Chief Minister.
Unlike the past, the dissident group, however, has not projected any leader to be their next Chief Minister.
Marak told reporters on Monday that the MLAs wanted a change of leadership as they feel that the Chief Minister has become beyond correction.
In fact Marak admitted that in the past he had urged the Chief Minister to address the grievances of the legislators, but in vain.
T o a question, Marak also made it clear the Chief Minister has never consulted him on any matter and if there were proper consultations, there would not have been any demand for change of leadership now.
“Some MLAs and Ministers came to me expressing unhappiness over the style of functioning of the Chief Minister several times in the past, and I thought it is high time as a senior leader to apprise the AICC leaders on the matter”, Marak said. the delegation represented by him, Lapang and HDR Lyngdoh with Sonia Gandhi, the issues raised included unhappiness of ministers over the style of functioning of the Chief Minister, worsening law and order situation in Garo Hills, the Chief Minister becoming inaccessible to the legislators, lack of initiative on the part of the Chief Minister to address the grievances of legislators in Congress Legislature Party (CLP).
Other issues raised with Sonia included the set back of the party in the Lok Sabha polls in Garo Hills and the lack of interest on the part of the Chief Minister in campaigning for Shillong candidate Vincent Pala.
The delegation also conveyed to the Congress president that majority of schemes are ‘hijacked’ to Ampati , the home constituency of the Chief Minister.
Marak said though the word hijacking is little rough, the MLAs, who are part of the delegation used the word to express their dissatisfaction.
According to the former Chief Minister, very often the legislators wanted to discuss developmental schemes of their respective constituencies in the presence of Chief Minister and Ministers in the meeting of CLP, but there was not a single CLP meeting held especially to discuss the development schemes of the legislators.
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Mukul ‘hijacking’ development schemes to Ampati