Shillong: Meghalaya Leader of Opposition Dr Mukul Sangma on Friday ruled out that he along with 12 of his colleagues are leaving the Congress party and said that “differences” will be sorted out within the four walls of the party.
“The story has always been doing the rounds. But the fact is that we have been able to insulate our team from poaching which was being resorted to,” Sangma said, reacting to media reports about his plans to join the Trinamool Congress.
Media reports have been doing the rounds that the veteran Congress leader and former Chief Minister Sangma is going to leave the grand-old party and move to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after the appointment of former Union Minister and three-time Lok Sabha member Vincent H. Pala as president of Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC).
Sangma said that he has been invited to Delhi and will travel there on Sunday. He is expected to meet the interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi.
Admitting that there are grievances within the party, he pointed out that Congress member of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council, Lamphrang Blah is leaving the party to contest the Mawphlang bye-election on a National People’s Party ticket.
“So these are indications…these are tips of the iceberg. Therefore, we want to resolve them at the appropriate time…meaning well ahead of the election,” Sangma said.
Voicing optimism that ultimately a resolution would be arrived at within the party fold, the former Chief Minister said, “We are trying to insulate our MLAs. We have been successful and capable of doing that. Unlike in other states where members of various political parties have become victims of poaching.”
“That’s why what you are seeing in Punjab you are not seeing here. We don’t want to be like in Punjab. What you see in Punjab could have been avoided. If they would have adopted the same approach as us,” the veteran Congress leader asserted.
A senior Congress legislator, who wished not to be named revealed that Sangma is “perturbed” with the Congress leadership for not consulting him about the appointment of Pala as MPCC president.
The internal feud within the Congress party came to the fore when Sangma and his loyalists skipped a function where Pala was formally inducted as MPCC president and a programme where former Home Minister Robert Garnett Lyngdoh and former Congress legislator Pynshnaignlang Syiem rejoined the Congress.
“By convention, the AICC consults the CLP (Congress Legislature Party) leader, but he was surprised that the party did not consult him and learnt about Pala’s elevation to the top-post of PPC from party’s notification,” the legislator revealed on condition of anonymity.
“It is not only Dr Mukul Sangma, but even other legislators and party workers were surprised with Pala’s appointment without consulting the CLP leader,” the Congress legislator said.
The veteran Congress leader had reportedly met TMC General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee in Kolkata on September 21 at Netaji House in the West Bengal capital.
Sangma, however, had neither denied nor accepted the report of his recent meetings with TMC leadership, but said, “I have friends all across, both within and outside the state”.
A TMC leader, who wished not to be quoted, said the TMC leadership had sent feelers to the two-time CM inviting him to be part of the party and to expand TMC in the North Eastern States.
