Meghalaya has no dearth of regional political parties all vying to capture the indigenous tribal vote bank. From time to time there is a call for regional party unity because, as everyone knows, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
The Regional Democratic Alliance (RDA), comprising the Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) and United Democratic Party (UDP), was meant to be a step in the direction towards unity. However, today it was revealed that the HSPDP has expressed an unwillingness to continue with the RDA and the UDP seems to think that dissolving the partnership is probably the right move.
The big factor in the potential breakup is the RDA’s dismal performance in the recent Lok Sabha election.
The UDP is the second-largest party in the Meghalaya Assembly with 12 seats and the HSPDP has a further two. That works out to nearly 40 percent of the 36 seats in Khasi-Jaintia Hills. And, yet, put together, the RDA with their joint candidate could only muster fewer than 45,000 votes in the Parliamentary election.
In the poll, the HSPDP officially backed the UDP’s Robertjune Kharjahrin for the Shillong seat. However, it was rumoured that the two HSPDP MLAs were not in favour of Kharjahrin because he had attacked them when he was still a leader of the Hynniewtrep Youths Council following the state election in early 2023. At that time, the UDP had been trying to form a government without the National People’s Party (NPP) but the plan turned out to be a damp squib after the two HSPDP legislators slipped away from a meeting to pledge allegiance to the NPP.
Speaking today, UDP working president and cabinet minister Paul Lyngdoh said, “There are multiple factors for the failure of the RDA candidate, which is why even the HSPDP has decided to pull out of the RDA.”
The decision has only been made verbally, so the two parties will need to meet formally and settle the issue “once and for all”.
Asked if this decision of the HSPDP will impact the UDP negatively, he said, “You might say so. We might think it is better to work in different ways since we could not reach 5 percent of the total vote this time.”
The Voice of the People Party (VPP) swept all before it to claim the Shillong seat but Kharjahrin’s fourth place finish was so far behind even the Congress Party and NPP in second and third that it was a total embarrassment.
Searching for answers, Lyngdoh said that if the UDP had gone it alone without HSPDP support it could have crossed 5 percent. “We (UDP and HSPDP) could not galvanise our entire cadre in a manner that we should have done.” Timing was also an issue, according to him – while the VPP was already campaigning up and down the state, the UDP and HSPDP had yet to settle on a candidate.
