The Hindu : Sangma visualises `reunification' of all Congressmen

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 18, 2004

National

National

Sangma visualises `reunification' of all Congressmen

By Barun Das Gupta

GUWAHATI, MARCH 17 . Purno Sangma, breakaway leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, said here today that he decided to merge his faction with the Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee because "as a life-long Congressman committed to Congress ideology, I am not at all comfortable with the BJP."

He told mediapersons that being basically a Congressman, he had to be in a party ideologically close to the Congress. "That is why I cannot merge my party with the BJP."

He said he visualised the reunification of "all Congressmen," those now in the Congress and those outside it, including himself, after the Lok Sabha polls. That will be a Congress without Sonia Gandhi.

Asked whether he meant that after the polls Ms. Gandhi would cease to be the Congress president, Mr. Sangma's cryptic reply was: "My language is poor, I cannot express myself (adequately)."

Mr. Sangma said he had no objection to Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka Vadra becoming the Prime Minister. He disagreed with the BJP leader, Pramod Mahajan's view that even the daughter and son of Ms. Gandhi should not be allowed to become Prime Ministers.

Mr. Sangma said that under the merger agreement signed between the Sangma faction of the Nationalist Congress Party and the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), all State units of the AITC, except those in West Bengal and Tripura, would become units of the new party, the Nationalist Trinamool Congress (NTC), if they agreed to accept the merger.

However, in the coming Lok Sabha elections, NTC candidates will file their nomination papers as AITC candidates because the party will be formally recognised and given an election symbol only after the polls.

He said he had "allowed" the seven party MLAs and one associate member in Meghalaya to be formally in the Sharad Pawar group in order to avoid disqualification under the new anti-defection law but work for the NTC.

The executive committee of the Assam NCP had met here on Monday but could not take any decision about the future.

But the Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, Jorhat and Goalpara units had decided to merge with the NTC.

Mr. Sangma and his colleagues have decided to form a unit of the NTC in Assam.

The NTC would field one candidate in Manipur and one in Arunachal. The party wanted to contest the Jorhat seat with the BJP's support, but it would no longer be possible, as the BJP had decided to contest 12 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam, including Jorhat.

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