SHILLONG, JAN 15: The Congress in the South Garo Hills received a severe jolt on Tuesday when close to a hundred members resigned from the primary membership of the party to protest the denial of the Baghmara Assembly constituency ticket to the sitting Dalu legislator Samuel Sangma.
The Congress workers, including seven ward commissioners of the Baghmara municipality, 60 members of the Baghmara Congress Committee and 25 members of the Baghmara Mahila Congress Committee, tendered their resignations in a meeting at Congress Bhawan in Baghmara.
Sangma’s spokesman Sushil Debbarma told this website that all of them have vowed to help Samuel get elected from Baghmara as an Independent.
Though Samuel is the sitting MLA of Dalu, he had opted to contest the Baghmara seat in the elections slated for February 23 , given that his stronghold areas in Dalu had been transferred to the Baghmara seat following the delimitation of the Assembly constituencies. However, the Congress chose to ignore Samuel’s wish and instead offered the party ticket from Baghmara to Lazarus M Sangma.
Samuel entered electoral politics as an Independent candidate in the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC). He contested the 2003 Assembly elections on an NCP ticket from Dalu, and won. He subsequently joined the Congress and successfully fought the 2008 Assembly elections.
Debbarma said Congress had no presence in the Baghmara area before Samuel joined the party. It was Samuel, he said, who set up the party in the area and had also got the Congress Bhawan built at Baghmara on the advice of chief minister Mukul Sangma. “Now the people are angry with the chief minister for betraying their leader. They want Samuel to contest as an independent candidate,” he said.
Congress leaders in South Garo Hills admitted that the resignation of the Congress members was a huge setback to the party before the elections. South Garo Hills District Congress Committee president Betroy M Sangma said the party will now have to work doubly hard to ensure the victory of the party’s official candidate from Baghmara. (By Our Reporter)
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