UDP to strengthen organization ahead of 2028 poll: Rymbui

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaAugust 20, 2024

United Democratic Party (UDP) leader and former home minister Lahkmen Rymbui on Tuesday said the 12 legislators would work towards strengthening the party at the grassroot level ahead of the 2028 Assembly elections. 

His statement came a day after three Congress legislators merged with the ruling National People’s Party (NPP). 

“The UDP is the oldest and largest regional party in the state. So every party is trying to strengthen their own base and is trying to strengthen their own numbers in the Assembly. So as a party, we are 12 of us (in the Assembly) so we will also try to work to strengthen our party at the grassroot so that we will see in the next election how it is,” Rymbui told reporters. 

Asked on the measures taken to prevent any attempt to poach the UDP MLAs, the Amlarem legislator said, “I will not use the word poaching as whoever join any other party it is up to his own conscience, it is his own judgement as he is the best person to judge.”

“For us, as of now, we are 12 of us and we won the election from UDP and we stick to the ideology of the party and we will try to do our best not only to strengthen the party but we try to analyze also as you said also why most of the MLAs join other parties but if you recall in the last term before the election, we have few MLAs who joined the party, we will not lose hope, we will continue to work and attract…,” he said.

Rymbui however said that the main challenge before the UDP is to strengthen its base in the Garo Hills region.

“But our main challenges is how to get some base in Garo Hills so that the UDP, which is the largest regional party, it should be a pan Meghalaya party but not as of now for the last 2-3 elections, we concentrated only in Khasi-Jaintia region,” he added.