Candidate for Shillong seat
SHILLONG: A day after UDP claimed that it had sent feelers to non-Congress parties seeking support for the party candidate in Shillong Parliamentary seat, political parties including HSPDP, KHNAM and BJP have denied receiving any such request.
“We have not received any official communiqué from UDP to support its candidature,” HSPDP president Hoping Stone Lyngdoh said here on Tuesday.
He also refuted the People’s Candidate Forum’s claim that HSPDP had assured support to its nominee Rev PBM Basaiawmoit.
“We are meeting to discuss this matter on November 22,” Lyngdoh said. He did not rule out the possibility of his party putting up its own candidate in the Lok Sabha election due in 2014.
BJP general secretary Dipayan Chakraborty, while denying receiving any feelers from UDP, however, said “Unofficially many UDP leaders have requested us to support the party candidate”.
It may be mentioned here that UDP participated in the meeting of the North East Regional Political Front convened by Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in Guwahati recently.
Echoing a similar view, KHNAM president Pyndapborthiaw Saibon said, “Personally, I would urge UDP to reconsider its decision to field Paul Lyngdoh from the Shillong seat. He (Lyngdoh) should remain in the State politics”.
“I would earnestly suggest the UDP to convince Rev PBM Basaiawmoit to contest from the party. He (Basaiawmoit) is the best possible consensus candidate,” KHNAM president said. The UDP on Monday stated that the party was waiting for the response of non-Congress forces before taking the final call on the party’s candidate for the Shillong Parliamentary seat.
UDP, NPP form joint poll panel : Meanwhile, Opposition NPP and UDP have constituted a coordination committee for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Informing this here on Tuesday, NPP leader James Sangma said that the decision to this effect was taken at the meeting of MPF held on Monday.