Barely a day after Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma executed the first-ever cabinet reshuffle of the MDA 2.0 government, the political corridors of Meghalaya are already abuzz with intrigue, dissent, and shifting loyalties. While murmurs of dissatisfaction ripple among legislators who feel shortchanged in the exercise of power distribution, the Bharatiya Janata Party—though a junior ally in the coalition—has begun to flex its muscles and project electoral ambition.
In a move loaded with political undertones, newly inducted cabinet minister and BJP legislator Sanbor Shullai on Wednesday hinted at a brewing churn across party lines. Declaring that the BJP is in active contact with several sitting MLAs as well as former legislators from other political parties, Shullai sought to project the saffron party as the rising pole in Meghalaya politics.
“As a party we are trying, the sitting MLAs from other parties also we are in touch with them, and hopefully that sitting MLAs plenty of them will be joining BJP, will be contesting (Assembly elections) from BJP,” he asserted, making no attempt to hide the party’s aggressive recruitment drive.
Shullai further sharpened his pitch by invoking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity as a decisive factor driving BJP’s expansion in the state. “I am telling you wherever I have interaction with the people of villages, leaders the social organisation, leaders of the traditional institutions, leaders of the various church committee, so they are telling me and I am telling you that people in the rural areas have started accepting Modi ji based on his good works, because since the statehood after Modi ji took over they received number of developmental schemes which never happened earlier,” he said, striking at the emotional core of rural and grassroots sentiment.
With the next Assembly elections still two and a half years away, the BJP, emboldened by its ministerial berth in the reshuffle, has already pressed the campaign accelerator. Shullai revealed the party’s blueprint of early mobilisation, calibrated candidate selection, and grassroots expansion. “As an MLA and now as a Minister, I used have frequent meeting with our president of BJP Rickman Momin and all the party leaders and Karikartas that we have already started for the last two and half years we have started to campaign and to meet the potential candidate who we consider winning candidates in entire Meghalaya state and based on the directives of the party high command also we have series of programmes which we have to comply with the directive of the party high command. Accordingly along with the president we are moving to every part of the state and we will intensity our campaign now as we are having two and half years in hand and we cannot say that we are going to win all the 60 seats but in the coming elections hopefully 8-10 seats we hope that we will secure out of 60,” he declared.
The message was clear—while the MDA 2.0 coalition navigates the turbulence of reshuffle politics, the BJP is quietly preparing to translate cabinet accommodation into electoral consolidation. By setting an ambitious target of 8–10 seats, Shullai has positioned the party not just as a coalition partner but as a challenger ready to expand its footprint in Meghalaya’s fragmented political theatre.
