Meghalaya | MDA’s common candidate issue lingers on; consensus yet to be reached

From Our Correspondent | SHILLONG, October 30, 2018

The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) Coordination Committee has decided that the alliance partners would deliberate the issue of common candidates for the two Lok Sabha seats in the state within their parent party.

"We deliberate this issue in the meeting today. We have asked to first discuss the issue of common candidate within the parent party," Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma told media person here on Monday.

According to Conrad, the committee will meet again to discuss this issue after the alliance partners had discussed within their own party.

It may be mentioned that the meeting was attended by all the coalition partners of the MDA which include NPP, UDP, PDF, BJP, HSPDP, PDF and also independent MLAs who are supporting the MDA coalition in the state.

"The MDA has been convened to deliberate on the issue of common candidate of the alliance for next year's Lok Sabha polls," sources informed on Monday.

It may be mentioned that the UDP recently hinted that there could be instability if the coalition partners in the MDA do not have a consensus on the common candidate.

The UDP at the same time had indirectly put a condition that the UDP, being one of the major allies in the coalition, should be given an oppurtunity to contest from Shillong while the NPP should contest from Tura.

The UDP had earlier stated that they would make the final decision between Paul Lyngdoh and Jemino Mawthoh as the common canditate on October 31.

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