SHILLONG: Senior UDP leader Bindo M. Lanong has said most of the defectors would be defeated in next month’s Assembly elections, obliquely referring to the eight legislators who joined NPP on Thursday.
“The people will not favour candidates who jump over the fence and defect to other parties (before the elections). Most of the defectors will be defeated,” Lanong said when asked about NPP gaining the numbers ahead of the polls.
Congress MLAs, Rowell Lyngdoh, Sniawbhalang Dhar, Comingone Ymbon, Prestone Tynsong and Ngaitlang Dhar, former UDP member, Remington Pyngrope and Independent candidates, Hopeful Bamon and Stephanson Mukhim joined NPP at a public rally in Polo.
The veteran UDP leader downplayed NPP’s expectations of forming a single majority government, saying that their “dream (of winning 30-plus seats) is elusive.
“They had won just two seats in the 2013 elections.
So even if they get triple more in either Garo Hills or Khasi/Jaintia Hills, they would not win more than 12 seats. In fact, I doubt they will get six each in either region,” Lanong told The Shillong Times.
Lambasting NPP as a “party of betrayers”, he said the party, which was then NCP, had betrayed the Donkupar Roy-led coalition government in 2008.
“They betrayed us and went to Delhi quietly to sign a deal with the Congress leaders to form a new government in the state in 2008. The Congress leaders here opposed the alliance. It was an act of betrayal which the people still remember,” Lanong recalled.
Claiming that the chances of UDP in the polls were bright, the veteran leader said that the incumbent Congress-led government has failed on all fronts and that the BJP was “new to Meghalaya”.
“The Congress has fallen apart on its own. It is too old a party now and the BJP too new,” he said.
Lanong also wished that the Election Commission of India was appointed by any other competent authority but the government so as to ensure minimum interference and smooth conduct of elections. “To ensure that there is free and fair elections, it is important that EVMs are not tampered with and that money power does not play a role,” he added.
