Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cabinet minister Alexander L Hek said today that he is willing to try and heal the divides that have become more than apparent within the saffron outfit.
He added that any decision on whether to withdraw support from the state’s coalition government by the BJP, which only has two MLAs, will be taken by the central leadership and not that of the state.
Massive rifts have appeared in the BJP state unit of late, with the party leadership, comprising figures like President Ernest Mawrie, up against the two MLAs – Hek and Sanbor Shullai.
Mawrie and his supporters have not let the BJP’s membership of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government stop them from attacking the government in general and its constituent parties specifically on a number of issues, ranging from corruption in the district councils, illegal coal mining to the idea for a central bonded warehouse. These accusations and attacks have grievously annoyed the BJP’s coalition ‘allies’, though Hek and Shullai have often publicly disagreed with their state president.
Hek informed that the state unit leaders have requested him to convene a meeting to resolve the internal wrangling within the party.
The Health and Family Welfare Minister said that he was willing to convene a meeting but only to unite the warring factions as he “would not like to see a division within the party.”
He also informed that the state unit had decided that any issue or grievances with the government should initially be brought to the coordination committee of the MDA for discussion.
“Time and again it has been made amply clear that any grievances within the coalition should be discussed with the MDA before bringing them out in the public domain,” the minister added in a not too subtle dig against Mawrie and his supporters.
