United Democratic Party (UDP) chief Metbah Lyngdoh On Monday said despite trying to form a regional party Government in the state backed by TMC and Congress, they fall short of numbers.
“We made an attempt to form the Government since all the political parties wanted us to take the lead but at the end of the day we don’t have numbers with us to go ahead with this,” Lyngdoh said.
Lyngdoh said that his party’s decision to support the National People’s Party (NPP)-led government was to ensure stability.
Asked if they are happy returning back as MDA 2, the UDP president said, “What we are looking at is more stability and the Government should perform and we have discussed it in length before joining. As of now we feel we have taken the right decision by joining the NPP led alliance.”
Further, the UDP chief told reporters that it was very wrong on the part of the Voice of the People’s Party (VPP) president Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit to accuse the UDP of staging a political drama.
“I am not here as a president of the party to make a drama. I have never created any sort of drama to fool the people and I will never do that in the future as well. That is very clear from my side,” he said.
Lyngdoh said that the attempt to form an alternative government could not materialize after three MLAs which include two HSPDP MLAs and one Independent decided to support the NPP-led government.
“On that day after we saw the mandate of the people we felt that there was a voice that came out that UDP should take the lead in government formation. On that very same day we had the number of about 30, which means we can stake claim. But by evening, we came to know three of them had disappeared so we ended up with 27 numbers. So how can we stake claim with only 27 when the other side of the group has got 32,” he said.
The UDP chief further informed that they waited for almost two days after the president of one political party assured to bring back the MLAs but nothing happened.
“And we had a message coming from the other side of the group that they want us to be part of the government so we found we don’t have the number with us so we as a party decided to join (the NPP government),” he said.
The former Assembly Speaker said that his party has not demanded a deputy chief minister post adding “However, talks are still going on about the overall arrangement”.