Patra to Take UDP-BJP Talks to Delhi After Assam Meet Ends
BJP Northeast in-charge Sambit Patra is set to carry a sensitive round of talks with United Democratic Party legislators from Meghalaya to New Delhi after meetings in Guwahati, according to reports circulating across the state and the national capital. The development has pushed a long-whispered rift inside the UDP into the open and raised the possibility of a major realignment inside Meghalaya’s ruling coalition.
Sources told The Shillong Times that five of nine UDP MLAs said to be exploring a switch to the BJP were in Guwahati on Sunday for talks with Patra and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The other four were reported to be in Kolkata. Their next destination, according to the same sources, is Delhi, where they are expected to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president Nitin Nabin to complete formalities. The Guwahati round was described as a staging point after an earlier plan to settle any merger in New Delhi or Kolkata, away from close scrutiny in Shillong. Contact with the camp was quicker in Assam, and Sarma was in a position to coordinate.
The five named in Guwahati reports are Paul Lyngdoh, Lahkmen Rymbui, Mayralborn Syiem, Ollan Sing Suin and Matthew Beyondstar Kurbah. Those listed in Kolkata are Kyrmen Shylla, Synshar Kupar Lyngdoh Thabah, Pius Marwein and Balajied Synrem. None of the legislators has issued a public statement confirming a decision to leave the UDP.
The Guwahati meetings followed an earlier sitting that Patra had organised with Shah. That meeting was publicly framed as a discussion on the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act and related concerns of Meghalaya. Sources said the underlying subject then, as now, was the legislators joining the BJP. A UDP delegation led by Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui had also raised FCRA amendments, the Inner Line Permit, the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act, inclusion of Khasi and Garo in the Eighth Schedule, uranium mining, Harijan relocation and recognition of indigenous faiths during that Delhi engagement.
Why the discontent built
The reported turn toward the BJP is being linked to resentment that built after the Cabinet reshuffle of September 2025. Several UDP MLAs were told of the changes only at the last moment and felt they had no chance to discuss them inside the party. They came to believe the exercise was driven by the National People’s Party, which wanted to alter its own representation without taking the full political cost.
Sources claimed the NPP wanted to drop Ampareen Lyngdoh to accommodate Sosthenes Sohtun, replace Abu Taher Mondal with Timothy D. Shira, and drop Comingone Ymbon for Wailadmiki Shylla. Two senior NPP leaders were said to have personally met UDP president Metbah Lyngdoh to push the reshuffle. What deepened the resentment was Lyngdoh keeping a Cabinet berth himself instead of making way for another UDP legislator while the party was already divided over the changes.
The grievance later went beyond the ministry. After the NPP emerged with 33 MLAs in the 60-member House, some of the nine are said to see the dominant partner crowding them out even in their own constituencies, with NPP functionaries taking block-level decisions and awarding contracts without consulting the sitting UDP MLA. Some of them had discussed walking out of MDA-II. That did not happen, in part because they felt the UDP president lacked the leverage to stare down the NPP.
The reported move toward the BJP is being read as a message to the NPP: a regional ally with a central partner behind it cannot be treated as a junior afterthought. Sources said a larger ministerial share for the BJP, with at least a deputy chief minister’s spot and Cabinet berths, was already on the table.
Numbers, law and coalition arithmetic
The UDP has 12 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly. The BJP has two. The Trinamool Congress has four. Under the anti-defection law, eight UDP legislators would have to cross over to reach the two-thirds mark that avoids disqualification. If the nine move together, the strain inside MDA-II would no longer be a rumour. A sizeable shift would make the BJP the second-largest partner in the NPP-led government and give it the biggest footprint it has ever had in Meghalaya — the space the UDP now occupies — and force a recast of Cabinet berths.
Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma, who is also NPP president, can still run the House with smaller partners. He is expected to keep 2028 in view and will not upend the present arrangement unless he has to. Sangma cancelled a Delhi visit for the second time around the same period. Lyngdoh called off a ministry programme in the capital at the last moment.
The same strain has spilled into the Regional Democratic Alliance. Sources said the HSPDP had wanted the UDP to approach D.R.L. Nonglait for the Shillong parliamentary by-election before the NPP did and announced him. The UDP instead named V.G.K. Kynta. That choice, they said, widened the gap between the two regional parties.
State BJP leaders have earlier confirmed that discussions were underway at the central level, while preferring not to speculate on the outcome. The BJP’s longer-term target in Meghalaya, according to party voices, is to fight the 2028 Assembly elections from a position of greater strength rather than remain a minor ally.
UDP leadership pushes back
UDP general secretary Titosstarwell Chyne said no legislator had publicly declared an intention to join the BJP. “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. He alleged that the reports were being spread for personal interest and to weaken the party in the Assembly.
Asked whether all UDP MLAs were still with the party, Chyne said “almost,” but stressed that the majority remained intact as of Sunday. He dismissed speculation that Lyngdoh and Rymbui might be dropped from the Cabinet. Any reshuffle, he said, was the Chief Minister’s prerogative, and Sangma had not informed the UDP of any such plan. Chyne also clarified that the party president had not gone to Delhi. Lyngdoh had returned from a meeting in Khliehriat on Saturday and later gone home after being delayed near Mawryngkneng.
Lyngdoh later separately rejected reports of a mass defection. He said he had spoken directly to all 12 MLAs, not through third persons, and none had indicated they were joining the BJP. He described the claims as speculation and said he had remained in Shillong through the week except for an earlier official FCRA-related programme in Delhi. He also dismissed reports that legislators were camping in Guwahati and Kolkata for political negotiations, saying four MLAs — Pius Marwein, Balajied Synrem, Kyrmen Shylla and Synshar Lyngdoh — had travelled to Kolkata on Saturday evening for personal business.
Both the BJP and the UDP have largely avoided a formal public confirmation of merger talks. That silence has allowed competing versions to travel quickly: one of an imminent shift negotiated through Patra, Sarma, Shah and Nabin; the other of a regional party under pressure but still intact.
What Delhi will decide
A meeting in Delhi with Shah and Nabin would show whether the Guwahati and Kolkata rounds were only exploration or the start of a formal shift. A party leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said any crossing would depend on the understanding reached in New Delhi within a short window after the Assam meetings.
For Meghalaya, the stakes go beyond one party’s internal quarrel. The UDP has long presented itself as a regional voice inside a coalition led by the NPP and supported by the BJP. If a large bloc of its legislators moves to the national party, the balance inside the government, the allocation of ministries, and the shape of the 2028 contest would all change. If the talks stall and the UDP holds, the episode will still have exposed how thin the trust has become between partners who still share power.
For now, the next move rests with Patra’s effort to take the conversation from Assam to Delhi — and with whether the nine MLAs, the UDP leadership and the BJP’s central command treat that meeting as a negotiation or as the last step before a public announcement.
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