Shillong, Mar 6: The UDP president, Metbah Lyngdoh said that it is pretty sad that the party has been blamed for staging a political drama.
“I am not here as the president of the party to create any drama to fool the people. I will never do that in the future also. This is very clear from my side,” Lyngdoh said while reacting to the remarks made by VPP president, Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit.
He said that the party was serious in its effort to have a government led by the regional forces.
According to him, they would have gone ahead to stake claim since the whole idea to convene the meeting was to form a government led by the regional forces.
“We were supposed to have a second meeting to decide on the overall arrangement. But we could not because three MLAs disappeared including two HSPDP MLAs and one independent MLA,” Basaiawmoit said.
He further mentioned that they had been assured by the president of one of the political parties that the two MLAs who had deserted the group would come back.
“But this never happened. We were finally reduced to 27 MLAs after the two HSPDP MLAs and an independent had gone to support the NPP-led coalition,” the UDP president said.
He further questioned how they can go to stake claim for the formation of a government with 27 numbers especially when the other camp has got 32 MLAs.
Moreover, Lyngdoh said that the mandate given by the people is such that they wanted the UDP, especially from Khasi-Jaintia to lead the government.
“We felt the people of the region have given the mandate for us to lead the government as we used to talk during the election campaign. We made an attempt on that very same day to do that. Even then it is not enough with the number that we have,” he said.
Stating that the regional parties have got only 19, he said that it will need the support of the national parties like the Congress and TMC.
Meanwhile, Lyngdoh said that they got a message from another group requesting the party to be part of the government.
“We decided to join and support the NPP-led alliance after we found out we do not have adequate numbers. It is for the sake of disability we have decided to join the NPP,” the UDP president said.
Asserting that the party has not made any demand for a Deputy CM post, he said that there should be mutual understanding when it comes to a coalition government.