Shillong, May 27: BJP in Meghalaya is poised to get a boost with former Minister Manas Chaudhuri joining the saffron party next week.
Chaudhuri, who was elected to the Assembly for two terms from the erstwhile Mawprem Constituency in downtown Shillong, will be formally admitted to the party on May 31 at a public function here in presence of BJP national spokesperson Nalin Kohli.
The Padma Shri award winner in journalism, Chaudhuri is the former Editor of The Shillong Times. He was an Independent Member of the Assembly from 2005 to 2013 and served as Minister for Higher Education in the short-lived non-Congress coalition in 2008.He unsuccessfully contested the last election in 2013 on Congress ticket from South Shillong constituency. He resigned from the party a year ago.
Chaudhuri is one of the rare breed elected representatives who stood out for his transparency and accountability. He is widely credited for submitting complete financial accounts of the MLA schemes for all of eight years that he was in office. Besides, he allocated his entire salary and allowances for extending financial support to the poor and the needy. Similarly, his pension as an ex-MLA is being utilised by way of extending essential food stuff to some poverty stricken families.
It may be recalled that the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a DO letter to Chaudhuri in 2007 had eulogised the example set by him for others to follow.