Shillong, Oct 2: Former minister and UDP leader Paul Lyngdoh has said he had flagged the leadership crisis in the party long back, but his warning was ignored, leading to the party’s sharp decline from 12 MLAs to 4.
Asked if he will push for a change of leadership after 8 party MLAs defected to the BJP, Lyngdoh said, “The call for change was championed by me during the last general elections when we had a direct contest between Metbah and myself. At that point he won by a margin of 3 votes against me because I had just lost the 2013 general elections.”
“I kept confabulating with party leaders and specifically mentioned that we need somebody who has a vision beyond his constituency,” he said.
Lyngdoh alleged that the party president had a narrow focus.
“You can’t have a party president who is interested in creating a district only for his constituency and his immediate neighbour represented at that time by Brolding Nongsiej. You can’t have that narrow tunnel vision where the only letter he signed was for his own induction into the cabinet,” he said.
“All other political appointments, and you can cross-check with all MLAs, none of them got political assignments through the party president. Somebody had to knock at Conrad K Sangma’s door, somebody had to go to Bah Prestone. In that case, why have a PP leader? Those issues were festering,” he added.
“I prefer to be blunt and straight to the point. I stated what I had to say but that was ignored by the rank and file of the party and finally the party has paid the price. From 12 to potentially one is a huge, huge fall for the UDP,” Lyngdoh said.
On whether Metbah Lyngdoh should step down, he said, “I think he will be the best to answer that question because he had done something which had set a precedent and now he wants to do something which is against the precedent which he had set.”
