Shillong, Oct 31: The fight for party ticket in the United Democratic Party (UDP) is over, and the next battle for former UDP legislator, Jemino Mawthoh is to emerge as the common candidate of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from Shillong parliamentary constituency.

The UDP has preferred Jemino to former minister and UDP leader, Paul Lyngdoh in the selection of aspirants for party ticket.

The name of Jemino was declared after a meeting of the UDP’s state election committee held here on Wednesday.

UDP vice-president, Allantry F. Dkhar told reporters that Jemino was chosen as the candidate over Paul based on various factors including assessment conducted by district presidents of the party within the Shillong Lok Sabha constituency which has 36 Assembly constituencies.

How Jemino’s name was chosen, Dkhar said, all district presidents of the party and chosen members of the state election committee were asked about a month ago to conduct relevant exercises in order to evolve the consensus on one of the two ticket aspirants –Jemino and Paul.

“When it was time for taking a call, we took each and everyone view and that molded the consensus opinion of declaring Jemino as the candidate,” Dkhar said.

Earlier the UDP had projected that its candidate, either Jemino or Paul should be accepted as the common candidate of the MDA. The MDA government was formed by six political parties which comprised of the National People’s Party (NPP), UDP, People’s Democratic Front (PDF), Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP), BJP, NCP and Independents.

The UDP would also propose the name of Jemino as common candidate of the MDA from Shillong parliamentary constituency.

How confident is the UDP that Jemino’s name would get through as the common candidate of the MDA, Dkhar said, “Our confident is at the highest level because everyone knows that the acceptability factor of Jemino is undoubtedly high. We are not talking about MDA partners alone, but the voting electorates and in times to come as we carry out various steps and exercises to make him as the consensus candidate to be supported by the partners. Things will materialize the way we have foreseen right from the time we mooted the idea of a common candidate.”

A meeting of the MDA Coordination Committee held on October 29 decided that political parties that formed the MDA should first discuss the issue related to common candidate in their respective party, and then come back with their decision to the MDA Coordination Committee in the next meeting.

However some questions are yet to be answered by the UDP, whether it would not contest the Lok Sabha polls and easily give up, if Jemino does not emerge as the common candidate of the MDA.