Political parties and politicians are fickle at the best of times and loyalties are fluid. This was by and large admitted to today by South Shillong MLA Sanbor Shullai, who said that his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National People’s Party (NPP) are allies now but that could change in future.
The NPP is the dominant party in the state Assembly while the BJP has just two seats. On the other hand, the BJP runs the central government and the NPP scored zero wins in the recent general election to the Lok Sabha.
Shullai today said that the alliance between the two parties will continue for now as everyone is enjoying their “chair” in government but he could not guarantee how long it will last.
“In politics we cannot say. We cannot predict what will happen,” he said, adding that either side could decide to split from the other.
In Meghalaya, the BJP decided not to field candidates of its own and instead backed the NPP in the two seats the state has in the lower house of Parliament. Shullai described it as a shock to see the NPP lose both, the Tura (which it held) and Shillong (where it was challenging).
“When the present is like this, we have to think how to survive,” Shullai said.
In the Shillong seat, the Voice of the People Party (VPP) swept all before it and the NPP candidate, a state cabinet minister no less, could only finish third. Even in his own constituency of South Shillong, the NPP member only had a slim lead over the VPP, so Shullai and the BJP have taken note and will conduct a post-mortem of the poll.
In the constituency, NPP candidate Ampareen Lyngdoh secured 7,701 votes, the VPP 5,201 and Vincent Pala of the Congress polled 4,205.
When asked if he will stick with the BJP, Shullai reiterated that in politics there is no permanent enemy nor permanent friends.
“Today I am in the BJP, later on I may be with the RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal),” he added.
Shullai also said that the NPP has to be mindful of the winds of change as they lost most of the Assembly constituencies.
