Shillong, April 26 (IANS) Rebel Congress legislators in Meghalaya Tuesday called for a special meeting of the Congress Legislature Party meeting to end the bickerings among legislators over the demand to remove Mukul Sangma as chief minister.
However, the envoys of Congress president Sonia Gandhi have ruled out any change of guard, saying that "change can be effected only if the chief minister has committed some mistake".
"We (rebel Congress legislators) have all demanded from the AICC leaders (AICC general secretary Dhani Ram Shandil, who is in charge of tbne party's affairs in Meghalaya, and his deputy Sanjay Bapna) to convene a CLP meeting to discuss our grievances," Ronnie V. Lyngdoh, the CLP secretary, told IANS.
Another rebel legislator, who wished not to be identified, said: "By not convening the CLP, Dr Sangma is only trying to buy more time only to save his chair."
The party president has sent Shandil and Bapna to broker peace among the warring factions after some of the rebel legislators had met Gandhi a fortnight ago.
On Monday night, 18 of the 28 Congress legislators in the 60-member state assembly separately met the two AICC leaders at a private guest house and conveyed that they had "lost confidence" in Sangma's leadership.
The rebel Congress legislators are believed to have projected D.D. Lapang as a possible successor to Sangma.
Lapang, a veteran Congress legislator, resigned as chief minister April 20 last year after 21 of the 28 legislators proposed Sangma's name.
Admitting dissidence within the CLP in Meghalaya, Shandil said, "In a democratic set-up, differences among party members are always there. We need to sort out these differences in an appropriate forum."
The Sangma-led Congress government completed one year in office April 20.
"The coalition government is going strong. We are committed to serve the people," Sangma told IANS.
Sangma is heading the government formed by a Congress-led five-party combine called the United Alliance.
Political instability has dogged Meghalaya, which has seen four governments since the March 2008 assembly elections. The next assembly polls are due 2013.