Tura: Angered by the decision of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to award a party ticket to Lazarus Sangma for the Chokpot seat, members of the block Congress committee of Chokpot constituency on Sunday submitted their resignation en masse to the district Congress committee of South Garo Hills.

The decision to resign en masse came after a meeting between party workers in the village of Chokpot.

The members who resigned said as they were the grassroots level workers they understood the trends of the place better than everyone else and felt the ticket should have been given to another aspirant, Willie D. Shira.

The members called the decision of the high command as "wrong".

More than 100 members of the Mahila, block and Youth Congress have submitted mass resignation over the issue. They said Lazarus was an outsider to Chokpot.

The dissenters included the block committee chairman, vice-president, youth president and women's wing vice-president, among others.

"We have been helping the growth of the Congress in Chokpot, led by D. Shira for the past few years. We had hoped that the AICC and the PCC would see what have been achieved. However, their decision to give the ticket to Lazarus is a wrong move and the elections will prove us right," said one of the resigning members.

"We are unhappy at the decision of the AICC and the PCC as we had sought a local candidate who understands local problems better but were denied. We have thus decided to quit the party and support our candidate who has a better chance of winning," said L. Ch. Sangma, the party's block committee chief adviser.