Conrad breaks father Purno’s victory record in GH
with his wife Mehtab Chandee, in Tura on Thursday. (PTI)
TURA: Riding on a wave of sympathy, the National People’s Party (NPP) has completely decimated the Congress in Garo Hills at the Tura Lok Sabha by-election and broken all previous records of margin of victory, surpassing even that of Late P.A. Sangma.
Garo Hills has backed a new voice in Delhi in Purno Sangma’s younger son, Conrad K. Sangma, who has won his father’s vacant seat with a thumping majority of close to two lakh votes thus inflicting a crushing defeat on Chief Minister Mukul Sangma’s wife and sitting legislator Dikkanchi D. Shira in almost all 24 assembly segments that make up the Tura Lok Sabha seat. Only Ampati, which is Mukul Sangma’s constituency, favoured the ruling party in the State. Dikkanchi lost in her own assembly segment of Mahendraganj by 1100 votes.
The resounding victory has also repudiated the ‘tall’ claims of Chief Minister Mukul Sangma who during his election campaign had issued an open threat of ‘burying’ the NPP by the time the 2018 Meghalaya elections take place.
This was supposed to have been a routine by-election following the death of legendary Garo Hills strongman P.A. Sangma, but it gradually turned into an all out war of words as electioneering began, a little over three weeks ago, with daggers drawn on both sides.
The scion of a Garo Hills politico and the spouse of Meghalaya’s present chief minister clashed with all intensity.
Aggressive campaigning, trading of charges, allegations and anachronisms thrown in, it was a never say die for both the contesting candidates from two parties trying to usurp the political space of each other in Garo Hills.
But ultimately the winner took it all and the NPP has bounced back with a huge bang into the political scenario of Garo Hills, three years after they were almost wiped out in the 2013 State assembly polls winning just two seats out of 24.