4 Congress legislators give forms a slip

RUMBLINGS WITHIN

From Staff Correspondent

Shillong, Sept 15: Four prominent sitting Congress MLAs failed to collect the party’s application forms for contesting the next Assembly elections till the penultimate hour on Friday. This has filly confirmed to what was being speculated for quite some time now vis-à-vis the new political permutation and combition and where the quartet’s political allegiance actually lies.

The four Congress legislators who did not obtain the application forms include the dropped ministers in the twin reshuffle effected in the past one-and-a-half year – former Deputy Chief Minister Rowell Lyngdoh, senior legislator Prestone Tynsong, two-time legislator Sniawbhalang Dhar and Ngaitlang Dhar.  It is being speculated that the disgruntled quartet may either join the BJP or the tiol People’s Party. Interestingly, another sacked Minister AL Hek, who is presumed to rejoin the BJP, maged to collect the application form from the Congress Bhawan by authorising a close aide. Meanwhile, Meghalaya Pradesh Congress party (MPCC) leadership has confirmed the development. “Till this evening, we have had 100 plus aspirants for the 60 seats and those who failed to persolly collect it at the nick of time have sent authorised agents to collect the forms,” an MPCC functiory told The Sentinel.

Senior functiories within the MPCC expressed no surprise at the absence of the four disgruntled Congress legislators from the application list.

“The inputs received by our leadership three months ago have been confirmed,” another senior Congress functiory said, adding “This was the prime reason that the State leadership had decided to dissolve the block Congress committees (BCCs) in multiple constituencies.”  Chief Minister Mukul Sangma has already termed the quartet as political “turncoats”, though he stopped short of taking their mes. The MPCC’s election committee will hold back issuing application form for some constituencies. These are constituencies where the party is negotiating with the sitting MLAs in-order to convince them to rerun for the 2018 Assembly elections.