Days after reportedly being expelled from the Meghalaya unit of the Janata Dal-United (JDU), the former state secretary of the party, Cyril D Marak, today clarified that he had not been sacked but had quit after finding numerous faults in how the party unit was being run.
On April 11, the JDU Meghalaya convenor, Robinus T Sangma, said that Cyril and Nehru T Sangma (executive member) were removed for allegedly working against the party.
Robinus said that Cyril was tasked with finding candidates for the recent election but was observed by colleagues “selling himself for other political parties”, misleading party workers and levelling “false allegations” against the candidates. Nehru was also accused of “selling himself”, “treason” towards the party, speaking falsehoods against Robinus, etc.
In a strong rebuttal of the charges, Cyril told Highland Post that all of these accusations against him are false.
“I never had any interest to be state secretary but the general secretary, Joshua Marak, requested me to join,” Cyril said in an email.
He added that his query on how much money the state party had received from the high command to contest the recent Assembly election was never answered by Robinus.
However, Cyril continued to work faithfully for the party and was then shocked when Robinus started “blaming and sending false news” after the JDU failed to perform well at the election.
Cyril asked members of the public not to believe in the allegations made against him and said that he resigned from the JDU when he came to know about the claims made against him.
“I have no enmity against the party or other party members … but will not be a part of the JDU so long as Joshua and Robinus are in the party,” Cyril said, adding that he had borne many JDU campaign costs himself. “I’m not at all interested in such selfish-minded leaders.”
