Speaker can’t permit merger of 12 Meghalaya MLAs with non-existent TMC: Cong

The Meghalaya Congress said one of the grounds on which it disputed the merger claim of the 12 rebel MLAs with TMC, was that was the Trinamool Congress was non-existent in the assembly and the state before the “merger” announced by Mukul Sangma.

The Congress on Monday asked Meghalaya assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh to disqualify its 12 MLAs, who recently merged with the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC).

West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress founder Mamata Banerjee welcomed the merger announced by 12 Congress Meghalaya MLAs. (PTI)

Ampareen Lyngdoh, the newly elected Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader, asked the Speaker to initiate the procedure for acting on a petition for disqualification under Rule 7 of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) Rules, 1988 and to rule in its favour.

Ampareen was also accompanied by Meghalaya Congress chief and Shillong MP Vincent H Pala, two MLAs Mohendro Rapsang and Process T Sawkmie, former chief of Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) PN Syiem and senior advocate VGK Kynta.

The Congress suffered a big jolt after 12 of its 17 MLAs led by former chief minister Mukul Sangma announced that they have exited the party and merged with the Trinamool Congress last week. The Speaker is yet to give his ruling on the letter of merger submitted by the former Congress legislators.

After meeting the Speaker, Ampareen Lyngdoh told reporters that no political party should allow this kind of an exodus that discredits the political structure and asserted that the merger needs to be evaluated before it is accepted “because we still see no parent body for them (12 MLAs) to merge with”.

“We are challenging this so-called merger of 12 Congress MLAs with the Trinamool. How can this be allowed? That is the first question that we are asking the Speaker to consider,” Ampareen said.

Stating that there are many aspects of the 10th Schedule which need to be taken into consideration before this merger is actually permitted, the CLP leader said, “(This is because) we fail to see the presence of the Trinamool Congress…in operation in the state of Meghalaya.”

She added, “We don’t know who is the president, who their members are, we don’t know where their office is, we don’t know whether they have an address, if any communication is to be given to this group.”

Ampareen further questioned if the 12 MLAs have resigned from the Congress before merging with Trinamool Congress.

“…Have they given us their resignation letters, have they placed on record any point of contention, was there any anger, was there any feeling of being not heard, is there any written agenda that they hold, that makes them want to take this extreme step of working behind our backs and betraying us – this is something we are taking note of. We hope that we will be given an opportunity through our legal team to question the loyalty of these individuals. When you question loyalty, you automatically calculate and know that if they are not loyal today, they will never be loyal ever,” she stated.

She said the party has also requested the Speaker to again look at this whole question of less than two-third under paragraph 4 of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution of India adding that the party’s legal team will also be arguing whether it is 17 or 19 MLAs.

“…if you look at all these grey areas in the particular merger of the 12 MLAs of the Congress, we feel that there will be enough grounds to fight for disqualification of these individuals,” the Congress leader claimed.

She continued, “Our basic thrust in filing our petition is to ensure that we also give an opportunity to the Speaker’s office to review the 10th Schedule and adaptation of the rules of the 10th Schedule by the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly in the long run so that the 10th Schedule is not being played around by political ploy of this kind.