Appreciating the way it has won over the faith and trust of the public, cabinet minister and United Democratic Party (UDP) working president Paul Lyngdoh has said that the dramatic entry of the Voice of the People Party (VPP) has been a watershed moment for politics in Meghalaya.
The VPP was formed only in 2021 and won four seats in the 2023 state Assembly election before sweeping all before it in this year’s Lok Sabha election by winning the Shillong seat with an absolute majority. By comparison, the UDP is the older, more staid regional party, which, despite being the second largest in the Assembly with 12 seats, finished a distant fourth in the Parliamentary vote with a dismal 44,000 or so votes.
Yesterday, Lyngdoh, who also lost an MP election with the UDP in 2014, said, “The VPP entry into electoral politics is a welcome sign because it marks a watershed moment in Meghalaya polity where the plurality of the regional parties is a confirmed fact. But how long and how enduring will the VPP as an entity be, time will tell.”
That has been a common UDP refrain (and perhaps a hope) – that the VPP has made a huge splash but its fire could quickly burn out. Meghalaya has never had a shortage of regional parties and the UDP can point to its steadfastness as a positive, even if the VPP is the one that is trendy at the moment.
Talking about the Lok Sabha debacle, Lyngdoh said, “They (the VPP) enjoyed the kind of victory they could muster because they have not been vested with political power and have not been in office whereas we suffered because of huge anti-incumbency.”
While the UDP sits in the governing Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA), the VPP has resolutely sat alone in the opposition camp, unwilling to be too friendly with the Congress Party or Trinamool Congress.
Being alone fits the VPP image – anti-corruption, anti-elite, tribal-centric. Being in government for the last six years hurt the UDP in the polls, Lyngdoh explained. Even if the party was running against its MDA ally, the National People’s Party, it could not shake off its association with the NPP.
But perhaps that hardly mattered. The VPP won practically everywhere in Khasi-Jaintia Hills. The Congress was the incumbent, having held the Shillong seat for nearly 30 years continuously. The TMC did not run, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) support for the NPP candidate probably cost the latter among wary Christian voters. The UDP might have picked its candidate too late, Lyngdoh said, with the early advantage conceded to the VPP, which made its choice last year.
Out of the 36 Assembly seats in Khasi-Jaintia Hills that make up the Shillong parliamentary seat, the VPP won 34, Lyngdoh said, so it was not just the UDP that was routed but the Congress and NPP too.
Still, the manner in which the UDP lost was shocking. While no one came close to the VPP’s 5.71 lakh votes, the Congress (1.99 lakh) and NPP (1.86 lakh) at least made some impact. The UDP, in alliance with the Hill State People’s Democratic Party, could muster only 44,563.
What neither Lyngdoh nor anyone else in the UDP has publicly spoken about is whether the choice of candidate was the right one. Robertjune Kharjahrin is a known face thanks to his years of being in a pressure group but the jump to electoral politics, especially a Lok Sabha election, might have been too much, too soon.
Back to the VPP, Lyngdoh said, “It is a watershed moment for electoral politics in Meghalaya but I will reiterate that each election is different from the other.”
Next up is the delayed elections to the Khasi and Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Councils (KHADC and JHADC). The VPP is hoping to carry forward its momentum into these polls but Lyngdoh had his doubts about that. “You will see a different result but we do acknowledge that an entrance like theirs (the VPP’s) makes us look bad,” he said.
