Shillong: Former Meghalaya Assembly Speaker Abu Taher Mondal, who recently resigned from the opposition Congress, on Saturday joined the ruling National People’s Party (NPP).
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said Mondal’s entry will have a positive impact on the NPP in the plain belt areas of Garo Hills.
“Mondal brings with him years of experience as a leader of the plain belt areas and is determined to bring more development to Phulbari constituency together with the NPP,” Sangma, who is also the national president of the NPP, said.
The NPP also declared Mondal as the NPP candidate from the Phulbari assembly constituency, thus denying the incumbent sitting NPP legislator S. G. Esmatur Mominin to seek re-election on the NPP ticket.
Interestingly, Mominin is soon expected to resign as a member of the state assembly and from the primary membership of NPP and join the opposition Trinamool Congress
Mondal was the first “non-indigenous” legislator in Meghalaya to hold the post of Speaker from 2013 to 2018. He also created history in 1998 by becoming the first non-indigenous legislator in the state to be inducted as a minister in the then B.B. Lyngdoh ministry.
