Shillong,June 28: UDP leader Paul Lyngdoh, who is critical of the party leadership, said consultations were on with the party leaders in the West Shillong constituency on the future course of action.
When asked whether he will be leaving the UDP, Lyngdoh said, “We are having frequent, regular consultations with the party leaders in the constituency …will take the best decision in the interest of Meghalaya”.
Party weakeningÂ
Lyngdoh highlighted the past glory of the UDP and stressed the need of strengthening before it is too late.
“The UDP once upon a time had the pan-Meghalaya presence. It was the only regional party that had MLAs from the Khasi-Jaintia sector & Garo Hills… there were 8 MLAs from the Garo Hills sector. The VPP, PDF and KHNAM can’t claim the position that the UDP had as a party having a pan-Meghalaya presence…now the trend is you become only leaders of the constituencies…this is as good as the demise of a party”, Lyngdoh said.
He reminded that under the present leadership, the party lost many individual leaders like Bindo Lanong and Moonlight Pariat, among others.
“Somebody like Samuel Sangma from Garo Hills, who was still the MLA, left the party two weeks before the announcement of the polls. We also lost our political ally, the HSPDP on the first day after the election results. You can analyse why it happened”, Lyngdoh said.
The West Shillong MLA wanted the party leaders to remember that after the 2023 Assembly elections, efforts were made to cobble up a non-NPP government.
‘But with the amount of diversity and conflicts within the group, we had no choice but to align with the NPP and it is upto you to analyse why it happened”, he said.
Change of leadership
When asked about the change of leadership in the party, Lyngdoh said, “It is not for me to say at this juncture. UDP does not belong to a single individual, but it belongs to all the members, and the members should remember that with the UDP weakening, that place will be filled either by the VPP or national parties and that will ensure the demise of a political party that had stalwarts like BB Lyngdoh, SD Khongwir and EK Mawlong
Regarding ironing out differences within the party, he said it would depend on the initiative of the leadership.
“The fact that somebody was elected as the party president and also as the parliamentary party leader, that individual is the senior member of the party, and as the president of the UDP, he is serving the president of the NPP”, Lyngdoh pointed out the irony.
