NPP asks Mukul Sangma to step down as Opp Leader

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJuly 13, 2021

The ruling National People’s Party (NPP) on Tuesday asked the former chief minister Mukul Sangma to quit as the leader of opposition for his alleged involvement in the “scams” related to the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL).

This came a day after the Congress spokesperson Zenith Sangma had demanded the removal of the Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma due to the alleged corruption in the MeECL.

Terming the Congress’ statement as “laughable”, NPP spokesperson Nickey Nongkhlaw said, “It is in fact Mukul who should step down from the position of the leader of opposition for his shameful acts and scams which he committed when he was in power.”

He said it is very amusing how Mukul Sangma is using his brother Zenith Sangma to demand the resignation of the Chief Minister Conrad Sangma.

Citing the reason why MeECL is their favourite topic, Nongkhlaw alleged that both the brothers have understood that the amount of money they looted out of MeECL in 8 years, is a challenge for anyone to recover in a short time adding “That is why when they were booted out of power, it became their easiest point of attack.”

The NPP leader further accused Mukul Sangma of coming closes to privatize the MeECL in 2017 when the Congress was in power, when he signed deals with Renew Joule Private Limited to take away the power department’s mandate of setting up power plants.

According to him, Mukul had targeted Ri-Bhoi district, Mendipathar and Ampati for this privatisation deal.

“In the same year, he signed deals with ETA Star Infrastructure Ltd, Brijraj Power Metallics Ltd and MSGC Power Ltd for taking away small thermal power projects of MeECL and handing them over to these private companies.

Mukul gave away a huge amount of MeECL’s money to these companies, literally making the department crippled with debt. When members of the society raised concerns and complaints on this move of Mukul, only then he called off the deals after already causing the required damage to the department,” he said.

“What sort of an arrangement did Mukul have with these private players? Why did he use MeECL’s money for a private deal? While he may come up with another lie to defend this move of his, there is a known explanation to this,” he added.

Nongkhlaw further added that Mukul, after causing damage to the MeECL by using private players, further put the power department in jeopardy by handing over the cancelled projects to NEEPCO.

He said this further dealt a damage to the MeECL as that meant having a financial obligation towards the NEEPCO for this development.

“No wonder power cuts were rampant during Mukul’s time, stretching to four months every year, because he put MeECL in such a bad financial position that it did not have any more money left to fulfil the obligations of the bad agreements Congress had signed in 2007.

For Mukul and his brother to lecture on the power department is simply very ironic. In fact, if they had some amount of guilt left in them for deliberately misleading the public for all these years, they would not have contested elections at all,” Nongkhlaw stated.

He said however, today Mukul stands as the leader of the opposition and his brother is an MLA from the corruption-riddled Congress party adding that every now and then they surface to spread lies and then go under the covers.