Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Meghalaya state unit president Ernest Mawrie, who contested the recent state Assembly elections from the West Shillong constituency, lost to student leader-turned-politician Paul Lyngdoh of the United Democratic Party (UDP). Mawrie finished third behind Lyngdoh and National People’s Party’s (NPP) Mohendro Rapsang.
Lyngdoh emerged as the winner from the prestigious constituency, securing a total of 7,917 votes. Rapsang bagged 4,432 votes, while Mawrie had to be content with the support of only 3,771 voters.
Ernest Mawrie had made headlines just before the assembly elections, saying that if his party was voted to power in the state, there would be no imposition or restriction on the people of the Christian-dominated state in eating beef.
Asserting that everybody in the hill state eats beef and there is no restriction on it, Mawrie had said that he himself ate beef and that he would provide more security to the people belonging to the Christian community if the BJP came to power.
He had said that it is the lifestyle of the people of Meghalaya and no one can stop the practice.
On Wednesday, while speaking to ABP Live on the party’s possibilities of a post-poll alliance after the results, Ernest Mawrie said, “What we do will depend on the poll results. We have not discussed anything till now and it will be difficult to say at this moment. There is also the possibility that we will wait for another six months for a re-election in the state if we are unable to form the government.”
The Meghalaya Assembly election 2023 results were more or less in tune with the exit polls, with no single party getting an absolute majority. However, as the counting of votes entered the last leg, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on Twitter that his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad Sangma had called Union Home Minister Amit Shah to seek his support and blessings.
The alliance comes just a day after Sarma hosted a late-night meeting with Sangma in Guwahati, sparking speculation about the alliance.
Last year, the NPP had said that it would go solo in all the three assembly elections in Meghalaya, Tripura, and Nagaland. Sangma had then said that the decision would have no bearing on the larger tie-up in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
However, even with post-poll alliance, the NPP and the BJP fall are falling short of the majority by 3 seats. It will be interesting to see if Sangma goes back to his old allies. In the 60-member Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, a party needs to win at least 31 seats to get an absolute majority.
The Congress which was the single-largest party in the 2018 elections, with 21 seats, was reduced to just 5 constituencies this year. The TMC, meanwhile, had something to take back as it opened its account in the state with 5 seats.