Guwahati, September 29
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Meghalaya now wants 11 of its incumbent MLAs disqualified from the House for changing their allegiance to newly formed Nationalist People’s Party (NPP) in violation of the “anti-defection law”.

The NPP has been formed by former Lok Sabha Speaker and former NCP national leader PA Sangma who has immediately won over NCP MLAs to the fold of his new party giving a major jolt to the NCP before the forthcoming Assembly election in the hill state.

The NCP’s state convener Sanbor Shullai, MLA, has lodged a formal petition to Assembly Speaker Charles Pyngrope requesting the disqualification of 11 NCP legislators who had defected to the National People’s Party (NPP).

He has filed the petition demanding disqualification of the 11 NCP legislators as per the directive of the NCP’s central leadership.

As per Article 21 (A) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, elected members cannot defect from their original party during the tenure of the Assembly. The 11 legislators have defected from the original political party (NCP) from which they had contested and won in the 2008 Assembly elections. The defected legislators have merged with NPP.

“The 11 legislators only represent NCP at the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly. They have no authority to merge with other party since the merger would have to take place at the national level with the NCP being a national party,” said Devajit Saikia, the lawyer of the NCP in Meghalaya.

The NCP will be waiting for the action to be taken by the Assembly Speaker before their next move. Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Assembly is yet to receive any formal letter from the11 NCP MLAs confirming their merger with the NPP.