SHILLONG:
President of United Democratic Party (UDP) and former Assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh is all set to head the state’s planning board as its new chairman.
Informing this on March 9, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, “A notification (in this regard) will be coming up in the evening.”
Sangma also acknowledged receiving the official communication on the decision taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hills State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) about sharing of the cabinet berths among their respective MLAs.
“Yes, the BJP has written to me and the HSPDP also when they first met me that was the condition and the discussion that took place,” he said.
As far as the UDP is concerned, Sangma however said, “That of course is an internal matter (of the UDP). They have not mentioned to me anything about that (sharing of cabinet berths) but when it came to the HSPDP and the BJP, these discussions took place in front of me.”
The UDP has got two ministerial berths while one each for BJP and HSPDP.
When asked, the chief minister said, “When the time comes, we will discuss this matter. Yes the representation of the NPP in the cabinet may be not as much as one would wanted it to be as you said because the numbers are large but as I said we have certain circumstances under which we have to work and will have to sometime make adjustments and that is what we have done but we will definitely explore the options that also in the future.”
He admitted that there have been large numbers of MLAs from Garo Hills and said, “But as I said we have given 4 berths to Garo Hills and 8 ministers are there from Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills but we are trying to balance things out. We know that of course everybody will have their desire and to represent the district or the region but it is not always possible as we have our limitations.”
He continued: “Therefore, I don’t encourage that it has to be seen in that way all the time that because that it is 18 here and four her. These concerns are there but I don’t say that they are not important, they are important but at the end of the day when we form the government and we work for the government, we have to keep in mind that at the end of the day it is really about what is in the best interest of the state and that should be the primary criteria to decide on how we move forward and other criteria also should be taken into consideration but at the end the top priority is whatever or what is in the best interest of the state.”