NEW DELHI, 11 March 2007 — Meghalaya Chief Minister J.D. Rymbai resigned yesterday after initially defying orders from the Congress leadership.
“Rymbai has quit the post,” Ved Prakash, the party secretary in charge of Meghalaya, said.
Although Congress President Sonia Gandhi had asked Rymbai to quit following internal squabbles in the state unit, the chief minister had been defiant and had said he was ready to face any consequence.
“The state unit of the party is seized of the matter. The party will be taking necessary measures to avoid a political crisis,” Congress secretary Tom Vadakkan added.
The chief minister was asked to step down by Sonia on Tuesday night during a meeting in New Delhi.
Rymbai was sworn in as chief minister on June 15, 2006, succeeding D.D. Lapang, in the wake of a rebellion in the party.
Rymbai apparently lost a confidence vote held outside the assembly. He agreed to relinquish office, but changed his mind after several of Rymbai’s loyalists, including legislators of smaller regional parties who are coalition partners of the Congress-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government, backed him as chief minister.
Meghalaya has seen six different governments with varied combinations of political parties, resulting in four chief ministers in five years between 1998 and the last assembly elections in 2003.
There were just two occasions, since Meghalaya attained statehood in 1972, when a chief minister was able to complete the full five-year term.
