Assembly Speaker defends decision, says merger was legal
By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Aug 23: Former chief minister and TMC leader, Mukul Sangma on Friday questioned the legal validity of the merger of the three Congress MLAs with the ruling party since two of them had been suspended by the MPCC before the merger came into effect.
He pointed out that since the Congress MLAs (Charles Marngar and Gabriel Wahlang) had been suspended from the party they cannot be a signatory to any decision taken by a regular member (Celestine Lyngdoh) or the party for the merger.
“From the inputs that I have, the two members were suspended by the party and therefore they should be referred to as suspended Congress MLAs and hence they cannot be a signatory to any decision taken by regular members,” Sangma said.
He stated that the decision of the Congress to suspend them was to pre-empt any move for a split or merger since they can no longer take such a call on behalf of the party or its regular members.
He wanted to know how the Assembly Speaker interpreted the law or if there was some “manipulation” and said the Congress would be in a position to shed light on the same.
“The office of the Assembly Speaker is in the best position to disclose the details but from what we know at the time the two MLAs were suspended they had not yet signed the merger which renders it null and void.”
He suggested that the Congress should unearth the truth if it wants.
Assembly Speaker Thomas A Sangma, however, gave a clean chit to the merger of the three Congress MLAs with the NPP.
Speaking to media persons here on Friday, he said he had taken the decision to sanction the merger after examining it legally and finding it to be in order.
“Hence I took the decision of allowing them to merge with NPP,” he said.
He made it clear that the MLAs had the requisite two-thirds majority for the merger as per the Constitution.
The Speaker also revealed that he was neither aware of the suspension of the two MLAs nor he had received the suspension order from the Congress.
Referring to the issue of the new Leader of Opposition, the Speaker said his office may soon issue a de-notification order until and unless the incumbent opposition leader (Ronnie V Lyngdoh) resigns since he is the only member of the Congress in the House.
Informing that no submission has come from any political party for the Leader of Opposition post, he said it allows him the time to examine the matter in details.