SHILLONG: Giving a new twist to the ongoing political unrest in the KHADC, KHNAM, one of the partners of the ruling coalition -ARPA, has expressed its willingness to lead the council.
“We are ready to accept the leadership for the sake of survival of the ruling coalition,” KHNAM president Pyndapborthiaw Saibon said after a meeting of the senior leaders of the three ARPA partners (UDP, HSPDP and KHNAM) here on Saturday.
He said that his party would accept the leadership only if both the UDP and HSPDP refuse to take up the responsibility.
“We will seek a written assurance from both the parties before accepting the responsibility,” Saibon said while replying to a query on the possibilities of HSPDP and UDP betrayal.
Meanwhile, UDP president Donkupar Roy said that the meeting requested the HSPDP leadership to reconsider its decision not to accept the leadership of the Council.
“The leadership should remain with HSPDP since it has the highest number of MDCs in the alliance,” Roy said.
He said that the HSPDP is expected to meet on Monday to take the final call on the issue.
“The three parties will meet after this to take stock of the situation,” the UDP president said while welcoming KHNAM’s offer to lead the KHADC.
Making it clear that the situation does not permit his party to lead the Council, he said that in such a situation (if UDP leads KHADC) people might think that UDP demanded the change of leadership eying the CEM’s post.
Meanwhile, HSPDP joint secretary Witting Mawsor has denied that the party is playing any political game by throwing the leadership responsibility to UDP.
“It was a unanimous decision of the party to handover the leadership baton to UDP. We have no hidden agenda behind this decision,” Mawsor said.
When asked if Basaiawmoit camp put pressure on the party to take this decision, the HSPDP joint secretary, however, refused to comment on this.
Interestingly, besides Basiawmoit, two other MDCs of HSPDP — Teilinia Thangkhiew and Pyniaid N Syiem — skipped the Saturday’s meeting of the three ARPA allies.