Congress high command keen on revamping Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee to quell dissidence
From CK Nayak
New Delhi: After a brief lull Meghalaya is once again heading for a serious political crisis with the All India Congress Committee (AICC) contemplating revamping the party in the State and taking disciplinary action against KHADC Chief Executive Member Pynshngain N. Syiem who is reportedly toying with the idea of forming a regional party of his own.
The Congress high command is also likely to go ahead with the principle of ‘one man one post’ in Meghalaya which will divest three ministers from their present position in the MPCC, said AICC sources.
The ministers are MPCC working president Deborah C. Marak, organising secretary H.D.R. Lyngdoh and general secretary Sniawbhalang Dhar.
In a swift development the AICC has asked MPCC president D.D. Lapang to initiate disciplinary action against the KHADC chief after receiving reports that he is ‘trying’ to form a regional party of his own by splitting the Congress.
Former Congress minister R.G. Lyngdoh is slated to be the leader of the new party with the full backing of the BJP and other regional parties which are trying to topple Congress in the North East including in Meghalaya.
Lapang who arrived here earlier, had a long meeting with party president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday following which these developments took place, the AICC sources said. Lapang also met AICC general secretary in charge Meghalaya, C.P. Joshi, and discussed the present state of affairs in with him.
Lapang – on whom the high command has reposed faith – has been asked to resuscitate the party from the grass root level for the upcoming Assembly polls which are less than two years away. The party is also unnerved at the rise of the NPP under the MP-MLA brothers’ duo of Conrad and James Sangma which was decimated during the last assembly polls in 2013.
Chief Minister Mukul Sangma was called by the AICC for a discussion but he could not reach the national capital. Lapang was not available for comments. There are unconfirmed reports that Lok Sabha member from Shillong Vincent H. Pala is joining the BJP which he himself has denied several times. Pala, who was in Odisha as part of an AICC delegation, came back to the capital in the evening.
The AICC is aware of the discontentment among the party leaders and workers after failing to change the leadership issue in the hill state. The loyalists are also not happy since the party high command repeatedly disallowed a cabinet reshuffle despite persistent demands from the chief minister.
The party is also worried about the impending by-elections in the KHADC to the seats which fell vacant following the controversy over the dual post issue.
The party is, moreover, quite unnerved after a series of defeats in Garo Hills and Khasi hills recently.