Was Martin Danggo under coercion to resign from the Congress Party? If so what were the compulsions? Is the promise of a civil sub-division to the people of Ranikor the only bait that the National Peoples’ Party (NPP) held out? Chief Minister Conrad Sangma visited Ranikor on June12. The same day the Ranikor Block Congress was dissolved as all or most of its members joined the NPP. Later attempts were made to revamp the Ranikor BCC but the remaining Congress members expressed difficulties in doing so, immediately, as most of the prominent members had left the Party and the Block would have had to start from scratch. Interestingly, the Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee and other Congress leaders continued to deny the crisis within the Ranikor Block Congress. The Party leaders repeatedly refuted allegations that there are cracks in the Party which if not mended were likely to lead to further attrition and spread to other constituencies as well.
Martin M Danggo a former Speaker of the Meghalaya Assembly is a seasoned political player and must have taken the recent steps with an eye on maximum concessions from the present NPP-led coalition government. He is another of those Congressmen who is not used to being out of power and sitting out in the cold in the Opposition chairs in the State Assembly and doing his homework like any ordinary MLA. This is the problem with democracy not just in Meghalaya but across the country. Candidates fight elections basically because they want to be in the government. Anything other than that is not acceptable. Hence those in the Opposition spend their time in trying to pull the rug from under the ruling party’s feet. That’s what made successive governments in Meghalaya unstable and lacklustre. Chief Ministers had to constantly look behind their backs and guard their space lest it be usurped by a competitor. Mukul Sangma was dexterous enough to manage to run his government undisturbed for the last five years. He kept dissidents under check and he could do it because the AICC had full faith in him. Now that internal squabbles in the Congress have surfaced after the defeat of Deborah Marak from Williamnagar the Congress looks set to disintegrate mainly because of internal dissensions!