Congress legislature party (CLP) leader of Meghalaya Ampareen Lyngdoh on Friday filed the last batch of petitions seeking disqualification of the two remaining MLAs, who along with the 10 others had recently defected to the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC).
“We are very confident that our petitions stand tremendous merit while interpreting the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution of India,” Ampareen told journalists after submitting the petitions before the Assembly Speaker, Metbah Lyngdoh.
The last batch of petitions was filed against former Assembly Speaker and Nongthymmai legislator Charles Pyngrope, who also became the first state president of AITC, and Sutnga-Saipung legislator Shitlang Pale.
Earlier, in view of the Congress’ petition, former Chief Minister Mukul Sangma along with nine other legislators had submitted their replies to the Speaker after 7 days' time given to comply with the show-cause notice ended.
Stating that there has been a lapse in the exit of the 12 MLAs to the AITC, Ampareen said sub para 2 of para 4 of the Tenth Schedule clearly indicates that defection would only become effective if those who defected form a party and then merge with another political party.
She also said, "Another area which we feel requires attention is the meritorious ground that there was no resignation, no discussion, and no dialogue with the parent party".
“We also feel along side the two-third which is a compulsory occurence for defection of this nature, there are other gray areas in the Tenth Schedule which gives us enough confidence to believe that all these areas where we feel that there was no justice in this breakaway group but in fact it is a big betrayal, it is a big let down to the party which elected or gave them an opportunity to be elected to the legislative assembly as representatives of different constituencies by the Congress which is the parent party,” she added.
Ampareen then said they are trying their level best to present a case on merit so that these kinds of defections will not continue to upset the political stability of the state of Meghalaya and the country as a whole.
The CLP leader also referred to Mukul’s allegation that the Congress was attempting to have a cock and bull story by filing petitions against only 10 of the 12 defecting MLAs, as “baseless and nonsensical comments”.
She said, “We don’t want to react to baseless comments made by senior people who have benefited greatly from the Congress party in their entire tenure of service for the people of Meghalaya”.
