SHILLONG: A day after North Garo Hills Congress president and legislator Cherak Momin accused former Minister Frankenstein W Momin of indulging in anti-party activities during the 2015 GHADC polls, the latter on Monday denied the allegation and said that the Congress leadership ignored the objections raised by party workers and leaders and went ahead with allotting party ticket to the wife of NCP legislator Marthon Sangma.
“The accusation that I did not campaign for the party candidate is wrong and baseless. There were objections by the party members to the application of Zingje D. Shira, the wife of NCP MLA from Mendipathar, Marthon J. Sangma, on the ground that she was not even a member of the Congress party and that her application to join the party was defective,” Frankenstein said in a statement issued on Monday.
According to the former minister, the application was incomplete since she did not mention the name of the constituency and, moreover, she had submitted the application form without her signature.
“Inspite of our objections, the ticket was forcibly given to her, and since there was no alternative for us, all the Congress workers including myself worked very hard for her though she was defeated with a margin of 3500 votes,” Frankenstein said.
The former legislator said that the result is more or less same for Resubelpara as the Rongrong constituency from where the Congress candidate contested also faced a similar fate.
“This is the real position of the Congress in Mendipathar and Resubelpara, headquarter of the District Congress Committee in the last council election, where Cherak W. Momin is the president. I do not know whether he was sleeping during the election,” Frankenstein stated.
Referring to the disciplinary action against him as mentioned by Cherak, Frankenstein said he had not received any explanation call on the matter till date.
“In the past, I was the member of the disciplinary action committee along with late P.R. Kyndiah, as chairman. In our time, we took prompt action whenever we received such genuine complaints at the earliest possible. But in the case of GHADC elections, many months have already passed and even a notice is yet to be issued to me,” Frankenstein said, while adding that he was ready to face any action.
On the rebel tag pinned on him, the former minister wanted to know whether it has become a trend in Meghalaya to call anyone a rebel if he questions the style of functioning of Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, or one who questions issues related to transparency in the functioning of the party.
“If some people think that Mukul Sangma is the undisputed leader of Meghalaya after the demise of P.A. Sangma, I feel that many think otherwise,” he said.
According to Frankenstein, the by-election to Tura Lok Sabha seat is round the corner and the Assembly polls are barely two years away which will prove whether Mukul is the ‘disputed’ or ‘undisputed’ leader.
