There Is No Common Meghalaya Democratic Alliance Candidate: Vincent H Pala

LS POLLS

A REPORTER

SHILLONG: Congress candidate and sitting MP from Shillong Parliamentary seat Vincent H Pala has said that his contest in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls scheduled to be held on April 11, would be with United Democratic Party (UDP) candidate Jemino Mawthoh.

Speaking to The Sentinel, Pala said, “The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) has announced that their common candidate for the LS polls is Jemino Mawthoh. However, he is contesting the election with the UDP symbol. So the question does not arise as to whether he is the government’s common candidate as all allies within the MDA alliance have their own symbols.”

He said “a common candidate should have a neutral symbol which does not reflect his political party. That neutral symbol must be agreed upon by the MDA coalition partners.”

When asked, he said that “this is the second time that the Congress is fighting an election against a common candidate of the government. “The first time was against a candidate of the Regional Party Alliance (RPA). During that election, the Congress came out victorious.”

Reiterating that “there is no common candidate of the MDA as there is no common symbol”, Pala said, “This is just the claim of the UDP that their candidate is the common MDA candidate for the LS polls.”

When asked on the prospects of his winning the general election, the two-term MP from Shillong Parliamentary seat, Pala said, “As of now, I don’t want to comment because around 50 per cent of the voters have already decided on their choices of candidates and the remaining needs to be convinced through election campaign.”

According to him, “it is only after the filing of nomination papers for the LS polls” that they would be able to “understand the mood of the voters”.

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