UDP Says Majority of MLAs Intact, Alleges Bid to Split the Party
The United Democratic Party has pushed back against reports that nine of its legislators are preparing to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, insisting that a majority of its Assembly members remain with the organisation and accusing unnamed actors of trying to create confusion inside the party.
UDP general secretary Titosstarwell Chyne said on Sunday that no legislator from the party had publicly declared an intention to switch sides. “There’s no one from our party or any MLA who spoke to any news channel or print media that we are going to join BJP,” he said. According to him, the reports were being circulated for personal interest and to weaken the UDP in the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly.
Asked whether all UDP MLAs were still with the party, Chyne replied “almost,” but stressed that the majority remained intact as of Sunday. He also rejected speculation that party president Metbah Lyngdoh and Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui could be dropped from the Cabinet. Any reshuffle, he said, was the Chief Minister’s prerogative, and Conrad K. Sangma had not informed the UDP of any such plan.
Chyne further clarified that Lyngdoh had not travelled to Delhi. The party president returned from a meeting in Khliehriat on Saturday and later went home after being delayed near Mawryngkneng. The general secretary urged the public not to treat rumours as fact and said he had no confirmation of any decision by party MLAs to join the BJP.
The statement comes as Meghalaya’s political corridors have been filled with reports that nine of the UDP’s 12 MLAs are in talks with the BJP. Sources cited by local newspapers have placed five of them — Paul Lyngdoh, Lahkmen Rymbui, Mayralborn Syiem, Ollan Sing Suin and Matthew Beyondstar Kurbah — in Guwahati for discussions with BJP Northeast in-charge Sambit Patra and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The other four — Kyrmen Shylla, Synshar Kupar Lyngdoh Thabah, Pius Marwein and Balajied Synrem — were reported to have been in Kolkata since Saturday. Their next destination, according to those accounts, is Delhi, where a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president Nitin Nabin is said to be under discussion.
Those names have not been confirmed by the legislators themselves in public. That gap is central to the UDP leadership’s argument. Chyne’s point is that rumours, however detailed, are not the same as a public declaration. In Meghalaya politics, however, the absence of an on-camera statement has rarely stopped speculation once legislators begin travelling in groups and meeting national leaders.
The numbers explain why the story has travelled so quickly. The UDP has 12 MLAs. The BJP has two. The Trinamool Congress has four. The National People’s Party, led by Chief Minister Sangma, has 33. Under the anti-defection law, a group of eight UDP legislators — two-thirds of the party’s legislative strength — could merge with another party without inviting disqualification. A bloc of nine would clear that threshold. If such a shift took place, the UDP would be reduced to three MLAs, while the BJP’s tally would rise from two to 11. That would give the national party its largest legislative footprint in the hill state and displace the UDP as the second-largest partner in the NPP-led government.
Sources speaking to local newspapers have said the discontent did not appear overnight. They trace it to the Cabinet reshuffle of September last year. Several UDP MLAs, they claim, were told of the changes only at the last moment and were given little room to debate them inside the party. The same accounts say the NPP wanted changes in its own ministerial list but did not want to bear the political cost alone. What deepened the resentment, according to those sources, was that Metbah Lyngdoh retained a Cabinet berth instead of making way for another UDP legislator at a time when the party was already divided.
The grievance, they add, has since moved beyond the ministry. After the NPP emerged with 33 MLAs, some UDP legislators are said to feel crowded out even in their own constituencies, with NPP functionaries taking block-level decisions and awarding contracts without consulting the sitting MLA. Some of the unhappy legislators had earlier discussed walking out of the MDA-II alliance. That did not happen, sources said, partly because they felt the UDP president lacked the leverage to confront the dominant partner.
The reported turn towards the BJP is therefore being read in two ways. One reading is personal and organisational: anger with the UDP leadership and a search for a more powerful national partner before the 2028 Assembly elections. The other is strategic: a message to the NPP that a regional ally with a central party behind it cannot be treated as a junior partner. Sources have also said a larger ministerial share for the BJP, including talk of a deputy chief minister’s post, has been part of the back-channel conversation. None of this has been confirmed by the BJP or by the MLAs named in the reports.
Paul Lyngdoh’s name has drawn particular attention. He was earlier Tourism Minister and was later moved out of that portfolio. Local commentary has linked his reported restlessness both to that change and to constituency politics in Shillong, where former rival Mohendro Rapsang has joined the BJP. A sitting MLA who switches parties can hope for preference when tickets are distributed in 2028. That calculation, if it exists, is still unofficial. What is public is that Lyngdoh has not issued a statement matching the rumours.
The timing adds another layer. Political conversations in the state are already looking towards 2028, and a Shillong Lok Sabha by-election has sharpened the contest among alliance partners. There have also been reports of friction inside the broader regional camp after candidate choices for the parliamentary contest. Separately, some accounts have suggested that talks may not be limited to the UDP and that a few Trinamool Congress legislators have also been in contact with BJP leaders. Those claims, like the UDP reports, remain unconfirmed.
Chief Minister Sangma cancelled a Delhi visit for the second time, according to local reports, while Lyngdoh called off a ministry programme in the capital at the last moment. The UDP president has said he is unaware of any mass defection plan. That public posture and Chyne’s statement are now the party’s official line: no MLA has announced a switch, the majority remains intact, and rumours should not be treated as decisions.
The difficulty for the UDP is that Meghalaya’s politics has long been shaped by shifting alliances and late conversions. The party itself was built as a regional force in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. A large-scale move to a national party would raise questions about the mandate on which those MLAs were elected. Critics of such a switch argue that voters chose a regional platform, not a national one. Supporters of realignment argue that legislators follow power, resources and the next election, and that the NPP’s dominance has left smaller partners with little room.
Sangma can still run the House without a full-strength UDP. The NPP’s 33 seats give him a cushion that earlier Meghalaya chief ministers often lacked. The political cost is different. A weakened UDP would change the balance inside the coalition, increase the BJP’s bargaining power, and force a recast of Cabinet berths if Delhi presses for a larger share. It would also leave a vacuum in regional politics that other parties, including the Voice of the People Party, would try to fill before 2028.
For now, the facts on record are limited and important. Nine MLAs have been named in reports. None has publicly said they are joining the BJP. The UDP leadership says the majority is intact and alleges that someone inside or outside the party is trying to split it. Talks in Guwahati and Kolkata have been reported, with Delhi described as the next stop. Whether those meetings produce a merger, a bargain inside the existing alliance, or another round of denials will become clearer in the coming days.
Until a legislator speaks on record, or a formal letter reaches the Assembly Speaker, the UDP’s claim stands as the only official position from the party itself: the majority of its MLAs have not left, and rumours of a split should not be mistaken for a completed political deal.
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