State leader downplays offer
leader JP Nadda in the city on Wednesday. (ST)
SHILLONG: The BJP on Wednesday indicated that the party would take back A.L. Hek, who was dropped from the Cabinet in last month’s reshuffle, after the Congress MLA met Union Minister J.P. Nadda here on Wednesday morning.
When asked, Hek downplayed BJP’s remark saying he met the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister to submit a memorandum for various health facilities in the State and that the BJP leader said they would work together in the future.
“Nadda asked me why I was dropped and I said I was dropped as per the directive of AICC since they feel that I am close with the BJP,” Hek told The Shillong Times.
The former State minister said he was “politically born with BJP” and could not help his relation with the party. “I meet them (BJP leaders) for the development of the State and what is wrong if I meet them, they are not devils,” Hek said.
Nadda asked Hek, who left BJP in 2009 to join the Congress, if he was comfortable after being dropped from the Cabinet to which the leader replied in affirmative. When asked if BJP had invited him to join the party, he said “leaving or joining the party was not discussed in the meeting”.
Hek, along with senior leader Rowell Lyngdoh, was dropped from the State cabinet last month to pave way for Ronnie V. Lyngdoh and M.M. Danggo. But within days, he was appointed as one of the vice-presidents of the State Congress Committee.