By Our Reporter
Shillong: While the Congress is clear about setting up Charles Pyngrope as its candidate for the 21 Nongthymmai Assembly Constituency, the United Democratic Party (UDP) is still unsure about who to field as their candidate. At present there are two contenders – Dr Jemino Mawthoh an academician and Latiplang Kharkongor, MDC from the area who was earlier elected on a KHNAM ticket.
After KHNAM merged with the UDP, Paul Lyngdoh, who was appointed its working president, has been pushing for the candidature of Kharkongor from Nongthymmai. But Mawthoh also claims that the UDP had promised him the ticket and that was one of the conditions for his return to the party.
Earlier, Mawthoh had contested the Assembly election from the pre-delimited Malki-Nongthymmai Constituency as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate after quitting the UDP on being denied the party ticket. Mawthoh was up against senior party leader Bindo M Lanong at that time.
After the delimitation process, UDP bigwigs wooed Mawthoh back to the party. He was told to nurture the Nongthymmai seat since he had secured a reasonable number of votes from the Nongthymmai section of the Malki-Nongthymmai constituency in 2008.
But history seems to be repeating itself as far as Mawthoh is concerned. The UDP seems uncertain about who to nominate as their candidate even while time is running out. Giving the ticket to Mawthoh would reduce the clout of Paul Lyngdoh within the UDP.
Sources in the UDP claim that there is a great deal of dissension within the party as of now since Lyngdoh is pushing for his candidates from as many constituencies as possible. Hamlet Dohling’s nomination from Mylliem actually scuttled the chances of Teilinia Thangkhiew, Mylliem MDC, who was formerly elected from the NCP.
Thangkhiew who has her own vote bank was looking for the UDP ticket but that is now becoming a distant dream. Yet sources in the UDP feel that Thangkhiew has a better chance of winning the seat than Dohling. To be pitted against RV Lyngdoh of the Congress is no cakewalk, sources say.
UDP sources also claim that the merger of the KHNAM with UDP has not added value to the latter as KHNAM continues to exist as a splinter group and many former KHNAM leaders are going to contest the upcoming assembly election thereby leading to a split in regional party votes.
They also say that the family members of late EK Mawlong and his eldest son George Lyngdoh who had contested the Umroi seat but lost to the Congress, actually quit the UDP after the party merged with Paul Lyngdoh’s KHNAM without taking the views of the party rank and file.
Political observers who have kept a close eye on the goings-on in the UDP say that one person who is not enamoured with the UDP-KHNAM merger is Ardent Basaiawmoit.
Ardent’s recalcitrant behaviour in recent times in virtually challenging the UDP leadership is seen as a prelude to his quitting the party.