Purno hopes to ride on anti-incumbency wave

GHADC polls
SHILLONG: The NPP leader and former Lok Sabha speaker PA Sangma has exuded confidence about his party’s good show in the upcoming GHADC polls saying anti-incumbency factor weighing heavy on the Congress and its allies.
“There is a favourable wind because of anti-incumbency factor due to the law and order situation. We should do well”, Sangma told a select group of reporters here on Monday before leaving for Garo Hills.
Sangma also said that as far as the preservation of customary rights is concerned, the previous Council led by the Congress tried to codify it three times resulting in huge protests from the public and NPP.
“We are opposed to the view that if either father or mother is a Garo, the son or daughter can be called a Garo”, Sangma said.
The NPP leader also said that the extension of  term the present council three times  by the Congress-led government was against the spirit of the Constitution.
On the allegations by Independent legislator Saleng Sangma that NPP was not interested in any pre-poll alliance in Council polls despite the independent legislators and others supporting Sangma during the Lok Sabha polls, the NPP supremo said that  Saleng, John Leslee Sangma  and others were asking for candidates beyond their own constituencies.
“First of all NPP had its own candidates. They ( Saleng and others ) wanted to filed their candidates in 8 constituencies, subsequently they  asked for more. We did not agree to it,” Sangma said.
The NPP leader said that the party had given three seats — Zikzak, Betasing and Naguapara — to BJP.
Sangma also refuted the accusation that he was not keeping in touch with those MLAs and other political leaders who had campaigned for him during the last Lok Sabha polls.
“Since I was elected to Delhi, I was busy with my duty there. How can I make available to everybody since my duty is different”, Sangma said.