Meghalaya CM offers to quit

Meghalaya CM offers to quit
PTI
SHILLONG, APRIL 18
Meghalaya is heading towards formation of the fourth government in two years in the same assembly with Chief Minister D D Lapang today offering to quit conceding loss of majority in the CLP.
The beleaguered chief minister met Congress President Sonia Gandhi who is understood to have advised convening of a CLP meeting to elect its new leader.
“Lapang met Gandhi this evening and apprised her of the developments. The CLP meeting is likely to be held in Shillong tomorrow evening to elect the new leader,” a senior Congress legislator said over phone from New Delhi.
A meeting of the alliance partners of the Congress in the government is also expected to be held later, he said.
Before meeting Gandhi, Lapang had admitted that he has lost majority in the Congress Legislature Party and said that he was ready to quit making way for his deputy Mukul Sangma to take over.
“Mukul Sangma has the majority. I met the MLAs (who are in Delhi). I asked them, they said yes. I asked him to go ahead. I will tell Sonia Gandhi about this,” Lapang said over phone from New Delhi.
Backed by ‘majority’ of Congress MLAs, Deputy Chief Minister Mukul Sangma had yesterday rushed to Delhi. Sangma is learnt to have met senior AICC leaders Oscar Fernandes and Luizinho Falerio this morning.
Summoned by the AICC in a bid to find a solution to the leadership row, Lapang is camping in New Delhi while Sangma reached the capital today with 14 Congress MLAs including 10 dissidents who had sought Lapang’s ouster.
The ruling alliance, sworn in last year after the fall of the NCP-led government, enjoys the support of 44 MLAs — 28 of Congress, 9 of UDP, two of Hill State Peoples Democratic Party, one of Khyun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement and four Independents in the House of 60.