SHILLONG: In a symbolic signal to the Opposition members who remain absent , the members of the entire Treasury Bench including Ministers ‘went missing’ leaving the Chief Minister Mukul Sangma alone in the House when UDP legislator Paul Lyngdoh was raising the issues concerning public distribution system (PDS) through a motion.
Recently several Opposition members including the Opposition leader were absent in the House when important questions, motions and resolutions were taken up. Chief Minister had also expressed concern over this in the past.
While on Tuesday afternoon when Paul Lyngdoh was raising many points related to PDS anomalies, the House witnessed lack of quorum as 10 members (1/6 of the House) were not present.
This prompted the Assembly Speaker AT Mondal to ask the staff to ring the bell for the members to return to the House. Later when Remington Pyngrope (UDP) entered the House, the required quorum was filled.
However, the Ministers were still outside the House discussing something internally. Later they went to the Speaker’s room to continue their discussion.
At one point of time, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Clement Marak entered the House only to come out later after greeting the Chief Minister.
In the absence of the Food and Civil Supplies Minister, the Chief Minister had to reply to Paul Lyngdoh’s motion.
Speculation was rife that the action of the Ministers to remain absent for a while was to give a signal to some Opposition members who used to skip the House.
When contacted, Cabinet Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh said,” We have done our homework on various motions, but the Opposition members were not showing up in the House and we wanted to ensure that there is no quorum when the Opposition members move the motions”.