Paul Lyngdoh had been nursing a grudge against the UDP chief ever since he was literally unceremoniously relieved of his post as Tourism minister after being assured until the very last that no proposal for a cabinet reshuffle had come from the UDP side. When the reshuffle finally happened and Paul Lyngdoh lost his ministerial position only for the UDP chief to be awarded a ministerial berth it was interpreted as a grand deception. It was only a matter of time before Paul Lyngdoh would leave the UDP after the great betrayal. Now things have come a full circle and for Paul Lyngdoh being sworn in as minister yet again, this is sweet revenge.
Running a coalition government is equivalent to tightrope walking. It means keeping coalition partners in good humour, in this case the BJP with 10 MLAs and HSPDP with 2 MLAs, one of whom is already a minister. At this point the question is whether the HSPDP even deserves to have a minister with just two MLAs. The UDP is as good as non-existent. The BJP is sure to demand more ministers even though the NPP is now already in a huge majority. But the BJP will use its New Delhi clout to the hilt. It will be interesting to watch how Conrad Sangma manages to play his pack of cards while also keeping his flock in good humour for the next 15 months. In Meghalaya as has been evident, coalition politics has kept the state in a sort of limbo where development takes a backseat and those elected bargain their way to a ministerial position not because they want to serve their constituents and the state better but because they need to recover their pre-election investments. It's not possible to win elections today without financial investments. This is a harsh reality. The VPP may have been the only party that had not spent like the other political parties but there is a growing discontent in many of the constituencies won by the VPP. Those constituencies today suffer from infrastructural backlogs - such as poor road conditions - because the VPP is unwilling to negotiate with the government. VPP MLAs believe they speak from a superior position of not compromising on their ethics and not indulging their voters with freebies. In VPP constituencies the public rues the fact that they cannot even approach the MLA for an ambulance or a mortuary van to transport a dead body because the MLA says that is not his brief. When the electorate is used to freebies, weaning them off those could cost a seat or several seats.
Those well-endowed who also speak from a pedestal can lecture on clean governance, honesty and all the ethical mores that form the core values of the VPP because they don't need to visit the MLA's home for small mercies such as assistance for paying hospital bills or the children's school fees or getting a seat in some school etc. Large majority of Meghalayans both in rural and urban areas actually live below poverty line. If the VPP is really committed to help the underdog they must demand for an independent research on the number of households that are landless and living below poverty line in Meghalaya. This is the need of the hour.