SHILLONG:
Chief minister Conrad K Sangma on Monday said that the decision to step down doesn’t rest with him, but with the coalition partners in the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA).
“It cannot be my decision. It is the MLAs of the different coalition partners in the MDA that will take the call as they are the ones who had elected me to lead the government as the chief minister,” said Conrad.
The chief minister’s statement was in reaction to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of district council (MDC) from Tura, Bernard Marak’s demand that Conrad either gets the CBI to probe into the collapse of the dome of the under-construction assembly building in Mawdiangdiang on May 21 or resign.
Earlier in the day, the chief minister along with assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh inspected the assembly site and following which the high power committee decided to carry out an audit of the under-construction building by an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).
“The inquiry has to be done by a technical body and that is why we decided upon IIT,” he said.
Rejecting allegations that the contractors of the Assembly building were also engaged in the construction of the National People’s Party (NPP) state office, the chief minister termed them as “completely false”.
He further informed that the government invited bids from different companies for the construction of the NPP office and the same party may have filed a tender. “They have constructed massive bridges over the Brahmaputra so obviously their credentials are there and based on that, they must have applied. That is normally the procedure that is followed in any tender process. And it has nothing to do with me. But since you asked about the NPP office, I am clarifying here that it is completely false,” he said.