From CK Nayak
New Delhi: The mystery how the name of Zenith Sangma was included in the official list of AICC as the Congress candidate in Tura Lok Sabha seat instead of that of Daryl William Cheran Momin seems to be deeper than the mystery of the missing Malayasian plane.
Last Saturday, the Congress Election Committee cleared the name of Daryl for Tura but for some inexplicable reason the name of Zenith appeared in the official list of AICC. No clarification was issued either on subsequent days for the mistake. It took about a week for AICC to declare that Daryl would contest at Tura, and not Zenith.
In the absence of any clarification, speculation is rife, particularly because Zenith is the brother of Meghalaya Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma. Besides the Chief Minister himself, Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee president D. D. Lapang and AICC general secretary in charge of Meghalaya Luinzi Falerio also supported the candidature of Daryl and not of Zenith.
The AICC, however, is liable to commit mistakes, as past records show. In one Congress ruled state in the Northeast, one former PCC president and a former cabinet minister once had to contest on independent symbols but with support of Congress since the nominations had been given to two other leaders of the same party, again by “mistake.” In one of the assembly polls in Meghalaya, the name of P.R. Kyndiah’s son had been written on hand as a last moment replacement.
“Mistakes,” genuine or otherwise, are not an exception in the grand old Congress party which is more than 100 years old, as a party functionary explains. Such “errors” occurs some time, he explains. Norcould he give an explanation that such mistakes would not happen again, though, according to him, the names are selected after a process of thorough verification. Names can, however, be changed before the last date of filing of nominations, and, in exceptional cases, even before the date of withdrawal, the party functionary points out.
In one interesting real life case, a former PCC President while announcing the names to the media the list of candidates from his stated had detected that his own name was missing from the the list he had himself carried all the way from Delhi in a sealed envelope.
There are instances when nomination papers are snatched or taken by deceit and filed by the rivals at the eleventh hour. In one of the elections, the name of a notorious leader from Assam had been included on instructions from Delhi over the phone.
To prevent such aberrations, a senior leader usually carries the nomination papers with authorized signature from Delhi just a day before the last date of nomination. In the last assembly poll in Meghalaya, M.P. Vincent H Pala had carried the nomination papers one day before the expiry of the date. It is a different matter that this time around he had to wait for five agonizing days to get his own nomination.