SHILLONG:
Chief Executive Member (CEM) of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) Titostarwell Chyne, on Friday released an autobiography, My Journey, written by former deputy chief minister Rowell Lyngdoh.
Speaking at the programme, Chyne said that just by the title of the book, one can understand that it is based on the life journey of the former politician.
“If the book doesn’t exist, his life itself serves as a book for all the things he has accomplished,” Chyne added.
President of the Khasi Authors’ Society, D R L Nonglait, said that during the days of Lyngdoh, E K Mawlong, Ganold S Massar, Bindo M Lanong and Hoping Stone Lyngdoh, politics and governance were clean but now there has been a sea of change.
Nonglait said that he first met Lyngdoh in the field of politics during 1991-92.
“What I would like to point out here today is that I got the opportunity to be in the KHADC as a nominated MDC from 1992 to 1994. I remembered we toppled an Executive Committee (EC) and formed a new EC and Rowell (Lyngdoh) became the Chief Executive Member,” the KAS president said.
In the present day, an autobiography has become a part of literature which was not so in the past, said Nonglait.
“We have to study them as part of our curriculum,” he said.
He said Lyngdoh was a man of simple living and high thinking and was a disciplined man who shaped his (Nonglait’s) way of working.
“Due to his influence, I am what I am today,” he added.
In his last tenure, Lyngdoh represented the Mawkyrwat constituency in South West Khasi Hills district in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly during 2013-2018.
He was first elected to the Assembly in 1972 on a Hill State People’s Democratic Party ticket from Mawkyrwat. He was re-elected in 1978 and 1983 from the same political party.
However, in 1988, he was defeated by B Bires Nongsiej, the then candidate of the Hills People Union. Lyngdoh had then contested on a Congress ticket.
In 1993, he returned to the Assembly on a Congress ticket, but was defeated in 1998 and in 2003 by Nongsiej. Lyngdoh was re-elected in 2008. He passed away on March 13, this year.