By Our Staff Reporter
SHILLONG:
Veteran United Democratic Party (UDP) leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Bindo M Lanong on Saturday hinted that the party did not want to align with the Congress after the 2018 elections because of Mukul Sangma.
In 2018, after the assembly elections, the Congress had sought the support of the UDP to form the government with a proposal to share power two-and-a-half years each, which was rejected by the then president of the regional party, the Late Donkupar Roy.
“We thought of keeping them (Congress) at bay and said let’s choose a new partner, and in 2018 we partnered with the NPP under Conrad Sangma as Chief Minister because we had been with Mukul for eight years,” Lanong told reporters.
When asked why the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government decided to accept the support of the five Congress legislators now, he said it was because the party was now “minus Mukul”.
It may be mentioned that Mukul Sangma was the chief minister of the state for eight years, firstly from 2010 to 2013 and in the second term from 2013 to 2018.
The veteran UDP leader said that the Congress has had its long innings in the government and, therefore, the regional party thought that it would be better to go with NPP.
“We know how Dr. Mukul Sangma ran the power deals, so therefore we thought that it would be better if we keep the Congress out of power. Therefore, we decided to choose NPP to partner with in this term. So that’s the reason,” Lanong added.