Shillong, Feb 21: NPP national vice president and deputy chief minister Prestone Tynsong said there has been no decision taken yet on the Chief Ministerial candidate of the party.
“No arrangement (made) at all,” Tynsong told reporters when responding to a query on whether this time the Chief Minister will be from the Khasi and Jaintia Hills region of the state.
He said the leader will be elected by the newly elected NPP MLAs immediately after counting of votes on March 2.
Tynsong was projected as a chief ministerial face in the 2018 Assembly polls. Asked as to what went wrong when he was not made the chief minister of the state, Tynsong however said, “I think you know better. Again, I saw recently they replayed that video when our late UDP president Donkupar Roy said we are going to form the government provided that Conrad K Sangma is the chief minister. Okay it has ended.”
Stating that NPP’s focus in this coming election is to cross the half-way mark and form the government on its own, the deputy chief minister said, “From the leadership of the NPP, be it the national president and me being the national vice president, our decision is very clear. We said let us cross the bridge – meaning we need to get 33-34 seats then stability will be there – and a decision will also be taken for the issue of the leader that we will take and all those newly elected representatives of the party will have every right to elect a leader at that point of time.”
He also requested the need to avoid talking about this region or that region and said “because we are all Meghalayans”.
“My point is very clear, of course we will not allow anybody from outside Meghalaya to become CM. Why should we allow that but it should be within the state of Meghalaya, so no need to mention Khasi region or Jaintia region or Garo region; I think that is wrong. We should not at all say that as we are Meghalayans and our state is small, so we need to be one then only will (we) be able to become stronger and carry programmes of the party to the destination where the people wanted to,” Tynsong reasoned.
