From Our Correspondent
NONGSTOIN: Dr Jova Marak an aspirant for the Congress ticket from the newly delimited assembly constituency – Rambrai-Jyrngam, called a public meeting at Rambrai last Saturday.
The meeting, attended by well wishers from more than 20 villages of the constituency was aimed at garnering support from the public in the light of her intention to contest the coming State Assembly election from the same constituency.
In the meeting Dr Marak spoke about the need for all round development in the constituency which has been neglected by successive MLAs in the past 40 years since Meghalaya was created. Dr Marak tried to woo the woman voters of the area and asserted that women candidates are much better compared to their male counterparts since women are more laborious than men.
She highlighted the pathetic road condition of the area and said that only a change in the leadership could bring about a change.
When asked if she was expecting a Congress ticket Dr Marak replied in the affirmative. She said she is still struggling for the ticket. Rambrai constituency has five candidates aspiring for the Congress ticket. Dr Marak is the lone candidate from the Garo community so far. Rambrai-Jyrngam Assembly constituency has about 9300 Garo voters out of the total 22,300 voters. Political watchers believe that Dr Jova Marak, stands a good chance of winning the seat with or without the Congress ticket, if there are no other Garo candidates from the constituency.
They calculate the Khasi votes would be divided among the various Khasi candidates and said that Dr Marak would also get some of the Khasi votes as well.
Political experts observe that Dr Jova Marak is likely to be the first Garo legislator to be elected from West Khasi Hills in the history of Meghalaya.
A preliminary assessment by The Shillong Times finds that sitting MDC KP Pangniang as well as the HSPDP candidate from the same constituency is going to face a critical situation.
Although Pangniang is sure of winning the Assembly seat the main impediment is that 10 polling stations from which he enjoyed full support in the last MDC elections of 2009 have been now tagged to Mawshynrut Assembly Constituency and Nongstoin Assembly Constituency after the delimitation.
Hence approximately more than 2000 votes of the HSPDP from the Rambrai-Jyrngam Assembly Constituency has been deducted.
It may be mentioned that the BJP has already announced its party candidate for Rambrai-Jyrngam constituency.
The UDP and NCP are also contemplating fielding their respective candidates from the same constituency. The chances of KP Pangniang winning the seat are very dim as of now.
