Although the Assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh is still consulting legal experts regarding the merger of twelve Congress MLAs with the Trinamool Congress, his party colleague from the UDP Bindo M. Lanong continued to prod for disqualification of the legislators.
Lanong today said that it is just a matter of time that the twelve MLAs led by Dr. Mukul Sangma who left Congress and joined the Trinamool Congress will face disqualification of their Assembly membership.
“This law (the Tenth Schedule) is unambiguous in nature and has no double meaning and it is just a matter of time that these MLAs will face disqualification,” Lanong told Highland Post.
Stating that paragraph 6 of the Tenth Schedule empowers the Speaker to take action, Lanong said, “The twelve legislators have willfully left the Congress and joined the Trinamool Congress which is a pure case of defection and not a merger since merger cannot be done only by a State unit of the Congress.
“I hope that the Speaker takes action accordingly,” he said while reminding that paragraph 3 of the Tenth Schedule which initially allowed for a group of one-third MLAs to leave the parent party has been abrogated in 2004.
According to him, the only way left for the twelve MLAs is to surrender and return back to the Congress.
He asked, “Why are the MPCC members not filing a case against the twelve defectors in the court of law? Maybe they are waiting for the Speaker but there is no bar for them to approach the court of law right now.”
“What is the MPCC under Vincent Pala doing after such ruckus created by these twelve MLAs? If MPCC goes to the Supreme Court all the twelve MLAs are finished and it will not take time,” Lanong said that this is a clear case of defection.
He also said that if the court goes by the spirit of the Tenth Schedule, within three months the Congress will get justice on this matter.
“If the MPCC goes to court now perhaps by March or latest by May 2022 the twelve MLAs will get disqualification orders and by July-August the by-elections will have to be held and this is the time we will see the position of the Trinamool Congress in the State,” Lanong said.
With regard to Dr. Sangma’s claim that Trinamool Congress will rule Meghalaya in 2023, Lanong said, “Will people vote in favour of the political adulterers who have committed political adultery.”
“He (Mukul) is dreaming that his party will come to power in 2023 in the State and he is blindly accusing everybody left and right thinking everybody is blind like him,” Lanong said adding that since there has been no electoral test for the Trinamool Congress it remains politically non-existent in the State at present.
