Rebel Congress MLAs urge Rahul to intervene

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT

ITAGAR, Feb 6: The rebel Congress MLAs have pleaded AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi to intervene into the ongoing political crisis in the state and reiterated their demand for removal of deposed Chief Minister bam Tuki and allow Kalikho Pul to take over the rein of the state.

Gandhi who called the rebel lawmakers on Thursday last to find out a way to resolve the existing differences within the CLP, has assured the group to look into their request considerately and come out with a solution within six months time, a joint statement by 21 Congress MLAs informed here today.

“We are sanguine that considering the plight of the people of the state enduring a hard time, better wisdom will prevail upon the AICC this time,” they said in the statement.

“The meeting materialized after our persistent wait in New Delhi for the last four months,” they said.

“In the discussion with Gandhi, we articulated our stand as devoted Congress workers. We emphatically mentioned that our differences with the CLP leader in the state are due to our unceasing effort to uphold the party etiquette, morality, ethics and dignity,” they said.

“We expressed our grievances on misrule and gross mis-governce by Tuki, the autocratic manner that he adopted to run the affairs of the party by crushing inner party democracy, dropping of senior ministers and parliamentary secretaries at his whims and by acting in most unconstitutiol manner by disqualifying own party MLAs in order to secure his own position without caring a bit for the image of the Congress party whom the people has voted to power,” the statement said.

The MLAs also during the meeting pointed out how the misdeeds and corruption in Tuki regime resulted in chaos and lawlessness which had adversely affected the party morale and colossal loss of faith in the party by the people of the state.

The statement further said that to the utter dismay of the MLAs, it was divulged in the discussion that all the repressive actions taken by Tuki against them in the me of AICC, particularly those of dropping ministers and parliamentary secretaries, resigtion episode of 2 MLAs and disqualification of 14 Congress MLAs were in fact never approved by the AICC.

“We informed Gandhi that V rayansamy had all along stood by Tuki in creating all the mess, which is highly unbecoming of a person of the stature of tiol general secretary of the party,” the statement said adding, the MLAs have requested Gandhi to remove rayansamy as in-charge of the state to which, he consented immediately.