Shillong, May 3: In a major political development in the State, NPP Chief and Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma has announced that the People’s Democratic Front (PDF) MLAs will merge with the NPP on May 6.
The PDF has two MLAs and the merger will take NPP’s strength of legislators to 28 in the current in Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, a house of 60 members, just 3 seats short of gaining absolute majority. The two legislators of PDF are – Banteidor Lyngdoh (Mawkynrew) and Gavin M Mylliem (Sohra).
The merger of the PDF is seen as a significant development ahead of the election to Sohiong assembly seat slated on May 10. Election to Sohiong assembly seat was adjourned just before the February 27 assembly elections due to the death of United Democratic Party (UDP) candidates, Horju Donkupar Roy Lyngdoh, a former minister and leader of the UDP.
Conrad made this announcement on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday as he campaigned through the night at various villages in Sohiong for NPP candidate Samlin Malngiang for the upcoming bye-election to the Sohiong constituency on May 10, 2023. He met the people, talked to them and danced with them at the villages of Lawmei, Nongpathaw and Kreit.
Addressing the crowd, he informed, “…many leaders today are joining the NPP. Today, leaders from UDP and other parties are also joining the NPP… today (Tuesday) the PDF Party had its Central Executive meeting and in that Central Executive Meeting, the PDF has decided that all their MLAs and all the party leaders will merge into the National People’s Party of the State.”
“They will merge and join the NPP on the 6th of this month in Shillong,” he added.
Asking people to vote for NPP, he said usually people, before the election, do not know who will be their Chief Minister or which party will come to power, but in the current situation the people of Sohiong already know the Chief Minister and the party in power, which is the NPP. As such, voting for NPP makes more sense.
“(in earlier election) don’t know who to vote for. But in this by election you already know who your Chief Minister is, he’s standing in front of you. You already know that the government is the NPP led government and you know that this is the government that is going to be able to bring development to the constituency and to this area,” he said.
He further stated that MLAs of parties like the Congress or the UDP may get MLA scheme of Rs 2 crore every year, but the Chief Minister has Rs. 17,000 crores in schemes for the people. Therefore, if the people vote for the CM’s candidate, they can imagine how much development and schemes they can get.
