Former Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and 11 others joined Trinamool Congress in Meghalaya. With this move, 12 out of 18 Congress MLAs joined the Trinamool Congress.
This comes a month after Rahul Gandhi met former Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and the party’s state president Vincent H Pala over their demands.
The former Chief Minister and Congress Legislature Party leader Mukul M Sangma and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Vincent H Pala had not been getting along well ever since the latter was appointed the new Meghalaya unit chief.
Sangma had also stated that the party leadership did not consult him on Pala’s appointment.
With this latest development, despite not winning a single seat in the 2018 state elections, the TMC became the principal opposition party in the state assembly.
Meghalya has 60 seats in Assembly and currently Goernment headed by NPP with 22 MLAs in alliance with UDP with 8 MLAs PDP with 4 MLAs and BJP with 2 MLAs ..
On the other hand, the Congress, which so far had 18 MLAs, is now reduced to just six.
Over the past couple of months, the TMC has been on an expansion mode.
Assam-Meghalaya border dispute is due to demarcation of boundaries during creation of Meghalaya as a separate state from Assam in 1972.
The TMC has been trying to expand its footprint in Tripura and Goa with an eye to the next assembly elections in these states.
As per reports, Sangma along with 11 other party MLAs submitted their resignation letter to Assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh on Wednesday evening. The ones who jumped the ship are all the eight MLAs from Garo Hills and four from Khasi Jaintia hills.
Earlier there was speculation that Sangma may defect to the Trinamool Congress.
But after meeting took place with Congress leader Rahul Ghandhi the two leaders, however, came together on Saturday and decided to work together for the upcoming bye-elections.
Sources had also said that members of Prashant Kishor’s team were in talks with the Congress leader on behalf of the TMC.
However, Sangma remained non-committal about the TMC offer. Addressing the media in the capital Shillong in September, Snagma said he would press for “course correction” within the party.
“I will press for course correction at an appropriate level within the four walls of our party, that is what I will do,” Sangma had said.
