Shillong, March 5: The United Democratic Party (UDP) and People’s Democratic Front (PDF) on Sunday have given their letters of support to the Conrad K. Sangma led National People’s Party (NPP) to form the new government in the State.
With the joining of UDP and PDF, the NPP-led alliance has 45 MLAs with BJP, HSPDP, and 2 independent MLAs already with it. Mentionably, UDP has 11 MLAs and PDF has 2 MLAs.
Thank you UDP and PDF for coming forward to join the NPP to form the Government. The strong support from homegrown political parties will further strengthen us to serve Meghalaya and its people. pic.twitter.com/YVJlx3BxCM
— Conrad K Sangma (@SangmaConrad) March 5, 2023
The swearing in of Conrad as Chief Minister and his council of ministers is scheduled on Tuesday at Raj Bhawan, Shillong, which will also be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
The only parties remaining in the other camp, which inevitably will be the opposition, are Congress with 5 MLAs, TMC with 5 MLAs and VPP with 4 MLAs, having a combined strength of 14 MLAs.
It is be mentioned here that there was lot of drama on Friday and Saturday as there was a push to install a regional-party led government in the State with UDP in the lead and Congress, TMC, VPP, HSPDP, PDF and 1 independent MLA in support of the alliance. The MLAs of these parties had met at the house of UDP leader Lahkmen Rymbui.
However, the NPP-led alliance already had 29 MLAs on Friday morning, with the support of BJP’s 2 MLAs and the independent MLA from Baghmara. Besides, the alliance had a Chief Minister candidate in Conrad Sangma. But the alliance was still short by 2 MLAs to be comfortable. By evening, HSPDP MLAs and another independent MLA had also extended their support to the NPP-led alliance, taking their number to 32 MLAs – a comfortable margin to form the government. Conrad immediately met the Governor and staked claim to form the government.
However, later more drama unfolded as HSPDP shot a letter to NPP to withdraw its support, saying that its MLAs had acted on their own and without the consultation of the party. But the party’s MLAs were firmly with NPP alliance. This came as a major embarrassment to the HSPDP president, and more so to UDP and its partners who were hoping to form the government.
Things got little out of hand on Friday night when some pressure groups went and torched the properties of the HSPDP legislators, to put pressure on them to return to the regional front’s camp.
On Saturday, pressure groups – HITO and HYC – held public meeting at Mawkhar point where they demanded a regional front based government and a Khasi Chief Minister. They also gave the HSPDP MLAs time till March 6 to ‘return’ to the regional front camp. Their demand and provocative language got the entire Shillong on edge as many feared for another law and order break down. The pressure groups threatened to storm the Raj Bhawan to disrupt the swearing-in ceremony.
But, by Sunday evening, everything seems to have settled down with the support of UDP and PDF to NPP led alliance.
All the 59 MLAs elected in the February 27 polls will take oath of office on Monday, where the swearing in ceremony is on March 7.
The election for the Sohiong constituency is yet to be notified by the election commission.
