SHILLONG, May 26: The All India Congress Committee (AICC) is reportedly trying to bring back Mukul Sangma into its fold.
A party insider told The Shillong Times that the former chief minister, who joined the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) with 11 other MLAs in November 2021, met an AICC leader close to Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik in Kolkata recently.
Another party leader said the two had met in New Delhi a few months ago.
It was learnt that the meeting between Sangma and the Congress leader revolved around bringing him back to the party. The former is believed to have expressed reservation about Lok Sabha member Vincent H Pala heading the Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee. The possibility of Sangma’s “ghar wapsi” was also reportedly discussed during a post-mortem of the party’s Meghalaya unit at the meeting of Congress leaders in Jaipur recently. When contacted, Sangma denied meeting any Congress leader. “They may be trying to meet me, but I have time only for those who want to join the AITC,” he said.
Somebody could have planted a rumour about him, he added.
“We took a very conscious decision to delink ourselves from the grand old party based on what we felt was right. What is there in Congress? They couldn’t even keep their five MLAs after our merger with the AITC,” Sangma said, claiming that Congress will lose most grassroots workers in the days to come.
There is infighting in whatever remains of the Congress while a few leaders are hobnobbing with the National People’s Party, he said. “About 90% of their important grassroots leaders at booth and block levels are joining the AITC this Saturday,” he said.
