The United Democratic Party (UDP), a partner of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government on Wednesday announced the name of its former legislator Jemino Mawthoh as its candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Shillong constituency.
Jemino got the better of former MLA Paul Lyngdoh in the race for party ticket.
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Announcing this decision after a meeting of the state election committee, UDP vice-president, Allantry F Dkhar told reporters that Jemino was chosen as the MP candidate based on various factors including assessment conducted by district presidents of the party within the Shillong Lok Sabha constituency.
The Shillong Lok Sabha seat has 36 Assembly constituencies across Khasi and Jaiñtia hills.
Asked about Jemino’s name being chosen, Dkhar said that all district presidents and chosen members of the state election committee were asked about a month ago to conduct relevant exercises in order to evolve the consensus on one of the two ticket aspirants.
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“When it was time for taking a call, we took each and everyone view and that molded the consensus opinion of declaring Jemino as the candidate,” Dkhar said.
Earlier the UDP had projected that its candidate, either Jemino or Paul should be accepted as the common candidate of the MDA.
The UDP would also propose the name of Jemino as common candidate of the MDA from Shillong parliamentary constituency.
On how confident is the UDP that Jemino’s name would get through as the common candidate of the MDA, Dkhar said, “Our confidence is at the highest level because everyone knows that the acceptability factor of Jemino is undoubtedly high. We are not talking about MDA partners alone, but the electorates and in times to come as we carry out various steps and exercises to make him as the consensus candidate to be supported by the partners. Things will materialize the way we have foreseen right from the time we mooted the idea of a common candidate.”
A meeting of the MDA Coordination Committee held on October 29 decided that political parties that formed the MDA should first discuss the issue related to common candidate in their respective party, and then come back with their decision to the MDA Coordination Committee in the next meeting.