The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got a new state president with Rikman Momin appointed to replace Ernest Mawrie in the role.
A state BJP national council member and senior party member from Garo Hills, Momin was appointed president today through a notification issued by the party’s national general secretary Arun Singh, who mentioned that BJP national president JP Nadda had sanctioned the appointment.
Mawrie has been a divisive figure, with factions within the party both supporting and opposing him. He has occupied the BJP state president’s chair since 2020. During his tenure the saffron party threw everything it could into expanding its footprint in Meghalaya but was unable to increase its tally of two seats in the Assembly at the state elections this year.
Mawrie’s removal comes a few months prior to the Lok Sabha election where the BJP will look to wrest at least one if not both of Meghalaya’s two seats.
Despite being unceremoniously dumped, Mawrie said he supported the decision of the central leaders and thanked them for giving him the opportunity to serve the party for the past three years in the role.
“We worked as a team. It is the system in the party when the term is over, we elect the new president. I will continue to work for the party to strengthen it,” he said.
Asked why the seat was uncontested, Mawrie said that the decision was made by the central leaders. “There are two systems – nomination and election; until today we have been practising nomination. When they appointed me as president in 2020, it was like an election because we had three contenders – AL Hek, David Kharsati and I was elected as president,” he explained.
