By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Aug 19: The weeks-long political drama involving three Congress MLAs looking to join the ruling NPP for greener pasture finally came to an end on Monday after they officially donned the NPP jerseys.
Since the past few weeks, reports had been emerging about the trio – Celestine Lyngdoh (Umsning), Charles Marngar (Mawhati) and Gabriel Wahlang (Nongstoin) – and their possible shift to the NPP but the three MLAs maintained silence on the matter.
Following reports, the Congress summoned the three MLAs but only Celestine appeared before the party and asserted that they had not taken any final decision.
Within hours of this meeting, the AICC suspended the two absentee MLAs – Wahlang and Charles Marngar – but spared Celestine, hoping to persuade him to change his mind.
The Congress was confident that the MLAs’ move to the NPP would be cut short since they would not be able to secure the two-thirds mandate to skip the anti-defection provision since Celestine had not made his intentions clear to the Congress.
However, things changed dramatically on Monday when Celestine joined the NPP.
The three MLAs informed media persons that the suspension letters were issued on August 16 whereas they had already submitted their merger letter to the Speaker two days earlier.
The three MLAs also clarified that they did not demand for any cabinet berth as they only wanted projects, schemes and development in their constituencies.
“We were neither offered any cabinet seat nor we asked for it,” Celestine said.
Nongstoin MLA Gabriel Wahlang said their only intention is to serve the public.
“Nongstoin lacks far behind and people there are poor. They depend on coal mining and I have urged the chief minister that coal mining and coke factories should be allowed to be operated legally so that the people can earn their livelihood,” he said.
Asked about the allegations made by MPCC president Vincent H Pala that NPP used their ill-gotten money to buy them, he said such allegations are a part of politics. Assembly Speaker Thomas A Sangma approved the “merger”.
A bulletin from the Assembly Secretariat stated that a communication for the merger was addressed on August 14 by three out of 4 members of the Indian National Congress in the Assembly.
“In the said letter, it was stated by three members they have merged with the NPP in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly and it was further stated in the letter that the three members have the required strength for merging into NPP under Para 4 of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India,” the bulletin said.
The Speaker had directed the three MLAs to personally verify the contents of application before him on Monday after which he took note of the facts and directed allotment of seats to the MLAs as members of the NPP in the Assembly.