Regional parties never win MP election:Donkupar Roy

The leader also maintained that there are only “white sheep” in the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) while reacting to recent allegations on the reason for the humiliating poll debacle.

“Since 1989, the regional parties have never won the MP elections and there are many reasons for that. Majority of the people feels that if we send an MP from the regional party in those days he will work with the Congress so if he works with the Congress why do we have to elect a regional party man better to directly elect the Congress. That feeling among the people continues till today that when we talk about the MP elections, we should send a person who is from the national party…so that is the main factor why the Congress won the MP elections (Shillong seat),” Roy told reporters here.

UDP leader and former Nongthymmai legislator Jemino Mawthoh, who was backed by the regional parties supporting the MDA government, had unsuccessfully contested against the sitting Congress MP Vincent H Pala in the just concluded elections.

Pala won with a margin of 1,52,433 votes, the biggest ever margin to be won by any candidate from Shillong Lok Sabha constituency since 1977.

The former Union minister polled 419,689 votes (53.52 per cent), defeating Mawthoh who polled 2,67,256 votes (34.08 per cent).

The MDA candidate also lost from Shella constituency which is being represented by the UDP chief. In Shella, Pala got 9,752 votes, and Mawthoh got 6,407 votes.

When sought for his reaction, Roy termed the Congress’ victory as “abnormal” and said, “This is an abnormal election as people fear the BJP and Modi. I will tell you I could not control even my own people also.”

He said the Congress propaganda that the “BJP is anti-minority, the UDP is an ally of the BJP, if you elect the UDP, it will go with the BJP” all these forces combining together had made our candidate lost the election.

“This was also a major factor in the last elections and we fail to counter this propaganda of the Congress,” Roy said adding “In fact this election we got more votes than what we got in the past and this shows that people have confidence in us but it was not sufficient enough to win the election.”

Asked if the UDP will sever ties with the BJP due to issue related to the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), he said the problem is that the people do not understand what the CAB is all about.

“We opposed the CAB and Congress is also opposing the CAB but the reasons and objectives are different. The Congress opposed the CAB just because the Muslim is left out from the purview of the CAB but we oppose because we thought if the CAB is passed it will encourage further migration to the North East. So the way we oppose the CAB and how the Congress is opposing are different,” he stated.

Whether it was the Modi’s wave that voters in urban areas have voted for the BJP, the UDP chief said, “In the whole country it is the Modi’s wave but here in Khasi and Jaintia Hills region people are in fact afraid of Modi and we cannot convince the people that Modi is such a person that you should not be afraid of.”

On the allegations that the presence of black sheep had led to the poor performance of the party in the election, Roy however said, “We only have white sheep and there is no black sheep. We tried our best and everyone in the group tried their best but we fail to win that’s all.”

By Our Reporter