SHILLONG, March 11: UDP president and Mairang MLA, Metbah Lyngdoh on Saturday flagged the use of money power while expressing concern over the phenomenon and vowing to ensure that it does not influence the people of his constituency.
“We need to make sure that money power should not dictate the future of the constituency. I will continue to fight and protect against the use of money power,” Lyngdoh said while speaking at a meeting held at Manai, which was attended by party leaders and supporters from the constituency.
He called upon people from the constituency to steer clear of any attempt to influence them using money.
Talking about the party’s recent performance in the Assembly polls, the UDP chief said the party had tasted different kinds of results in the past four elections in the state. “We had won four MLA elections from Mairang. We also won three elections to the KHADC. But we had also tasted defeat in the KHADC election in 2019 from Mairang. We can expect different results even in the upcoming elections,” Lyngdoh said.
The UDP MLA said the defeat in 2019 taught him a big lesson — which was not to take elections lightly.
Metbah had won the 2023 elections from Mairang by a slim margin of 155 votes.
“For me a victory is a victory. I don’t consider any difference between winning by a huge margin or by a single vote. We need to celebrate that our efforts we have all put in has paid off,” the UDP president said.
Stating that he polled 19,066 votes as against 10,573 in 2018, Lyngdoh said, “I am very happy to see an increase of 8,500 plus votes. This is a positive sign,” Lyngdoh added.
