SHILLONG: At a time when several political parties are counting on prominent figures to win the Assembly elections, the United Democratic Party (UDP) feels that its dark horses will be its trump card this time.
Speaking to media persons here on Tuesday, UDP working president Paul Lyngdoh said the party’s lesser known candidates with “huge winning potential are working silently in the field for the last three to four years”.
On the UDP-HSPDP alliance, Lyngdoh said this is the first time after the 1980s that UDP and HSPDP have come together on a single platform. “Regional parties are not divided but it is the Congress party that stands divided at the moment. There are at least four splinter groups which emerged from the Congress fold – NCP, NPP, PDF and the breakaway faction from the Mukul Sangma group,” he added as he criticised the Congress for decades of its “misrule, corruption and anti-people policy”.
When asked about all-regional party alliance in Meghalaya, the UDP working president said in 2015, UDP made an offer to the leader of KHNAM to work together and prepare for the Assembly elections “but their response was ‘Let us wait’, ‘let us see’, ‘let us discuss'”.
The legislator said UDP does not see any threat from other parties as “their role will diminish after UDP emerges as the single largest party” next year.
