East Shillong MLA Ampareen Lyngdoh, who just yesterday joined the NPP from the Congress Party, has termed the Trinamool Congress’s promise to give one woman from every household in Meghalaya Rs 1,000 a month if it wins next year’s election as up in the air.
On her recent visit to the state, TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee launched the party’s flagship Financial Inclusion for Women Empowerment Scheme. A similar scheme exists in West Bengal.
Soon after, the TMC claimed that more than 10,000 women had signed up for the scheme in a matter of hours.
“They (TMC) have made the announcement that it will be done post-election but the million dollar question is how many seats the TMC will win and if it will make it into government,” Lyngdoh told Highland Post.
She added that the TMC made a blunder by entering the state “by proxy” rather than directly through an election. The TMC made a splash in Meghalaya when 12 Congress MLAs defected to the TMC late last year (one has since quit in favour of the BJP). For their part, Lyngdoh and the other remaining four MLAs were suspended from the Congress early this year for defying the party’s authority by supporting the MDA government.
“These are the negative aspects that the TMC party will have to shoulder and take responsibility for. I can understand if it had won via the mandate of the people but they have won by the mandate of the leaders. Whether or not the leaders have taken on board public opinion is another thing and we will only know if the public reject or accept it post-election,” she said while stating that the TMC is one of the reasons for the collapse of the Congress in Meghalaya.
Election promises are easy to make but the real proof of the TMC’s intentions will only be if it wins the polls in March and that is a very big if, the legislator added.
