Shillong, Aug 21: A day after the ruling NPP pulled the rug from under the Opposition’s feet on Monday, whisking away three Congress legislators to emerge the largest party in the Assembly with a clear majority, political parties are scurrying to secure their flanks.
The mood among regional parties is sombre and cautious in the aftermath of what is being dubbed as Meghalaya’s very own “indigenous Operation Lotus” orchestrated by the NPP — a close ally of the BJP.
The saffron party is known for engineering splits in many states leading to the downfall of governments in Opposition-ruled states. One such example being the 2020 “unseating” of Congress Chief Minister Kamal Nath by the BJP in Madhya Pradesh after Jyotiraditya Scindia defected to the saffron side with a considerable number of Congress legislators.
Back home, fearing a repeat of the Congress’s ‘tragedy’, the largest regional party — the UDP which has 12 MLAs — has announced plans to strengthen and expand the party, even though the Assembly elections are more than three years away.
United Democratic Party (UDP) leader and former Home Minister Lahkmen Rymbui on Tuesday said their 12 legislators would work towards strengthening the party at the grassroots-level ahead of the 2028 Assembly elections.
“UDP is the oldest and largest regional party in the state. Every party is trying to strengthen their own base and numbers in the Assembly,” said Rymbui in reaction to the NPP’s expansion moves.
“We are 12 in number and will also try to work to strengthen our party at the grassroots-level and stick to our ideology,” he added.
The party is moving out of its comfort zone in the Khasi and Jaintia hills to foray deeper into the Garo Hills, a region that for decades turned down its advances.
“Our main challenge is to get a toehold in the Garo Hills so that the UDP, which is the largest regional party, can be a pan-Meghalaya party. For the last two-three elections, we concentrated only on the Khasi-Jaintia region,” he said, indicating a major shift in policy to try and dent the prospects of the NPP and the Congress in their stronghold of Garo Hills.
On the party moves to check against poaching of their MLAs, the Amlarem legislator said, “I will not use the word poaching as whoever joins any other party it is up to his or her own conscience. He or she is the best person to judge.”
He pointed out that even the UDP has had its share of moments in the sun. “In the last term before the election, we also had a few MLAs joining our party, we will not lose hope,” he said.
