Shillong: Stung by defections in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh, leaders of the ruling Congress government in Meghalaya have sent a three-page SOS to party president Sonia Gandhi accusing the opposition BJP of trying to destabilise the three-year-old Meghalaya United Alliance government's second term.
The latest development comes two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Shillong to mark two years of his government at the Centre.
"The BJP is camping in Shillong and are in connivance with two cabinet ministers," the Congress note said.
According to reports, the note also detailed an alleged meeting of state Congress chief DD Lapang with senior BJP leader Ram Madhav and Himanta Biswa, who was recently made convenor of newly-floated North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) by the saffron party after thumping victory in Assam.
A senior Congress leader said the latest political crisis has accentuated following the massive defeat of Congress candidate Dikkanchi D Shira, who is Chief Minister Mukul Sangma's wife, in the Tura Lok Sabha by-election. Former Lok Sabha speaker Purno Sangma's son Conrad Sangma won the bypoll by more than 1.92 lakh votes.
The Chief Minister too has accused the opposition BJP of trying to destabilise his government.
"The party not in power will try to destabilise the government. It is nothing new and they also made an attempt last year to destabilise my government by bringing a no-confidence motion against assembly Speaker (Abu Taher Mondal)," Mukul said.
On reports that several MLAs are demanding change in guard, he said, "Those are internal matters. The Congress party has an inherent system of dealing with such situations as part of our internal mechanism."
Sangma maintained that his government was stable.
A copy of the note was also sent to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.
In the 60-member legislature, the Congress has 30 seats, and has the support of the Nationalist Congress Party's two members and 11 Independent legislators.
The Congress was defeated in almost all 24 assembly segments, which cover Tura parliamentary constituency, barring Ampati assembly segment represented by Mukul Sangma.
In fact, Shira even failed to win in her own Mahendraganj constituency, which she won in her maiden assembly election by 6,859 votes. In this segment, Shira received 11,201 votes while Conrad secured 12,301 votes.
