Agatha takes ouster in stride - ‘I was not asked to quit, nor did I resign, I was dropped’

Agatha Sangma at her oath-taking ceremony.
 File picture  

TT;Shillong, Oct. 28: Former Union minister of state Agatha Sangma has clarified that she was neither asked to quit nor did she resign yesterday from the council of ministers. She was dropped. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had allegedly utilised a resignation letter signed by her three months ago when Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel had threatened to quit from the UPA cabinet. “They (NCP leaders) have used the resignation letter dated July 23, 2012, which I had been asked to send by my party leadership.

 I had submitted the letter to him (Sharad Pawar) during the crisis between the Congress and the NCP,” Agatha said. “It is very inappropriate that they are submitting a resignation letter, which was for a different purpose. I feel they should not have done it,” the two-time MP said. However, NCP sources said Agatha was dropped from the Union council of ministers in view of her “anti-party” activities. Sources said the young MP had remained absent from the party’s national convention, which was held on October 10. Taking the ouster from the council of ministers in her stride, Agatha said an opportunity has come for her to serve the people better.

 “I have gracefully accepted the same (dropping), but there is also a brighter side to it and as a parliamentarian, I have other bigger opportunities,” she said. Representing Tura, Agatha was made Union minister of state in the UPA-II government on May 28, 2009. She was first elected to the 14th Lok Sabha in a by-election in May 2008 after her father and former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno A. Sangma resigned from the seat following his election to the eighth Meghalaya Assembly. Relations between Agatha and the NCP started souring soon after Sangma announced his plan to contest the 2012 presidential polls against UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee.