Shillong, Feb 11: Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Vincent H Pala on Friday said he is not ready to resign but will prepare the party for the upcoming 2023 State Assembly polls.
“I will not surrender at any cost as it is not the time for me to say I will resign. I will face (the challenges) till the end of the 2023 Assembly elections and the result will say whether we lose and whether the people are with us,” Pala told reporters.
He, however, lamented that many leaders and workers of the Congress have succumbed to the ill-design of the BJP.
Also reacting to the allegations made by the MLAs against his leadership, Pala claimed that he never wanted to be the president of the MPCC and that it was the MLAs who went to the AICC for changing the leadership in the state.
“I was one of the leaders who said why we should keep on changing the president but the MLAs said we need to change and they are the ones who come and told me (to take over as president),” he said.
After the 12 legislators had defected to the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), the Congress now is heading for another setback with the five legislators having joined the BJP-backed MDA government without the consent of the party high command.
Money power to lure away Cong leaders
The MPCC president also alleged the use of illegal money to target the party MLAs, MDCs and workers. “The ill-gotten money from roadsides, from coal…has spilled towards politicians and I am afraid it will spill towards the churches, villages. We will become like Nagaland where individual politicians will be very rich and whereas the state will be very poor,” he said.
“If you go to Nagaland, as of today if you see, elections will not be fought based on ideology and issues. But I am sorry to say not only Nagaland but other states also (it is) based on how much money you are spending. Meghalaya, which never had that problem, this will be the first time when you see (it happening),” Pala added.
The MPCC chief further alleged that the NPP and AITC will try to buy and lure the MLAs of the Congress because they don’t have a base on the ground.
“NPP, if they want to go to the grass root to organize, nobody will be with them to organize. Trinamool is trying to organize, nobody is joining them easily. All these parties nobody will join them if they try to organize that is why they are trying to buy and trying to lure the MLAs so that they have a base on the ground,” he said.
