Pala pooh-poohs BJP’s claim on Cong MLAs

SHILLONG: Shillong MP and senior Congress party leader Vincent Pala has ridiculed the claims of BJP that as many as eight Congress MLAs in Meghalaya are in talks to jump over to the saffron party.
“There is no truth in such claims,” Pala said while talking to The Shillong Times on phone on Tuesday even as he maintained that it is natural for BJP to try and get MLAs from other parties since they have not received the mandate of the people of the state.
He said the Congress MLAs know the reality and they will not join the BJP while recalling that the BJP, even before the 2018 Assembly elections, had claimed that several Congress MLAs and leaders would join them but at the end nobody joined them.
“So how can we trust the BJP’s claim,” he said.
He said it is normal for the MLAs to meet the ministers for various development related works of the constituency.
“Even I met Conrad Sangma several times and I keep on meeting BJP Ministers as they are in power and we have to meet them for the requirements of the constituency,” he said while adding that the BJP itself does not trust the words of the party leader in the state as he was from the Congress.
Pala also refused to accept that the Congress is down and out in Meghalaya saying the party got the maximum number of votes in the last Lok Sabha polls.
“The situation is fine as people themselves would be able to see what Congress is and what a non-Congress party is,” he said.
Pala said the party does not want to de-stabilise the MDA government and ‘let the people decide after 5 years whether they want a Congress-led government or a non-Congress government in the state’.