By H H Mohrmen
The result of the recently held bye-election to Tura Lok Sabha Parliamentary Constituency has triggered conversations across the state about the fate of the major political party in the state. The landslide defeat of the party’s candidate (as defined by some) had made political commentators and doomsday tellers to predict that the result is the beginning of the decline of the Congress party in the state. Dr Mukul Sangma’s detractors inside and outside the party are beginning to draw their swords in the open ready to take the opportunity to punish him. But the question is will the bye-election result have any impact on the leadership of Dr Sangma in the party? Is the result any kind of an indication of the strength of the party in the Garo hills?
Readers of my column in the Khasi vernacular paper will know how I see this election. In my opinion it was a friendly match. In fact if I translate the title of the piece it goes is something like, ‘honour amongst the worst of enemies. ’ Yes, the way I see it is that there is as least some honour amongst the political enemies and the Congress is only contesting for the sake of contesting. The aura of the Garo hills strong man still reverberates in the hills and he is respected even by the Congress which is NPP’s arch rival. And if that is not the case, then it is some kind of an Achik trait that there is still honour even amongst worst of enemies especially when it involves a man of the stature of Purno Agitok Sangma.
I know many writers and columnists in this paper saw this election as Dr Sangma’s over- ambitiousness to have an absolute control over the state by pitching his own ‘other half’ as the candidate for this prestigious seat at a very critical juncture. They have even called this election a ‘do or die’ situation for the Chief Minister because the outcome of the Congress’s downhill slide in Meghalaya By H H Mohrmen election will have its ramification on his hold of leadership of the party in the state. But the truth is if the Congress really wants to win the election there are still many Congress leaders from the region with experience like the Chief Minister’s own brother Zenith Sangma, or even Deborah Marak who would have been able to give Conrad a good fight. Or if the party really wanted to wrestle the seat from the NPP, it still had the senior most members of the party in S C Marak. The election would not have been a cake walk for Conrad like it has just happened.
The Congress already knew that it is going to be an uphill task to beat Conrad an experienced politician with the sympathy wave backing him; but the winning margin was rather unexpected. It is true every force in the Garo hills and even in the state was working against the party in the last election, because not only did the NPP candidate have the sympathy wave with him but all the political parties in the state supported his candidacy. The Congress already knew that they were up against an insurmountable hill and if the aim of the party is to win the election then pitching a greenhorn like Dikkanchi Shira is a blunder of Himalayan magnitude for the party. With due respects to Dikkanchi she is just one election old in politics and she is no match to a politician of the stature and experience of Conrad Sangma.
If there is anything that we can take from this election it is the few lessons it offers to both the Congress the NPP; the other political parties and the public at large. If it is really true that Dr Sangma was over ambitious and Dikkanchi was his proxy candidate then the first lesson is for the CM himself. Dr Mukul Sangma must realize that winning the hearts of the people is not an easy task and that the Achik people are smarter than him and they know how and for whom to vote. He should remind himself of the famous saying of the person who coined the most popular definition of democracy that ‘you can fool some people some time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.’ Dr Sangma like his colleague in Assam also needs to humbly and gracefully accept the defeat as the will of the people. There is no point in whining like a child and complaining about EVM tampering because that is like a footballer blaming the team’s defeat for wearing a wrong pair of football boots.
For Dikkanchi it is her second election and a first defeat. She still has to learn the rope trick of being in a political family in Garo hills where every family member is expected to be a politician. The bye-election has also brought to fore the reality that in few more elections from now the political space in the Garo hills region of Meghalaya is going to be dominated by the two families. But it is the Congress party which has a lot to learn from the defeat in both Assam and Tura. Lesson number one is that the Congress’s arrogance is its worst enemy. The Congress must realize that the party is nothing if it is pitted against a united opposition therefore it is imperative that the party must scout and work out for a pre poll alliance before 2018. The anti incumbency factor coupled with united opposition, will definitely take the sail off the Congress’s ship. The same goes for the opposition; a divided opposition is an advantage for the Congress, so if the opposition really wants to defeat Congress in 2018, then the only option is to come under one umbrella to fight against the Congress. That was the formula used in Assam and it worked perfectly well, but the million dollar question is whether it is possible to have this sort of arrangement in Meghalaya. Is it possible to have a united opposition in Meghalaya?
The son has rightly said that the landslide win is a befitting tribute to the man, the Achik brothers and sisters and the people of Meghalaya and the entire north east are proud of. He should have been the first tribal president of the country, but the party that prevented him from becoming one, was none other than the Congress party. I think I am allowed to share with the readers of this esteemed paper that the image of P A Sangma that will linger in my mind for as long I can remember him is of a short bespectacled man trying to control the august house of more than five hundred members, who because of his stature used his hand more often than not to control the over-enthusiastic MPs. And Purno is a jolly man who when he is not lecturing, laughs out louder more than he speaks. If the Tura by-election is anything for the Congress it is but a pre-test before the main examination in 2018 and the outcome is that the strategy had failed. The party must work hard if it really wantsm to regain power after the 2018 general election to the state Assembly. Changing leaders at this juncture is not going to help the party and in fact it is going to do more harm than good for the party to even consider change of leadership now. Besides, is there any contender for the leadership position in the Congress party in Meghalaya today? If the party’s hope is to stop this downhill slide and also avoid following on the footsteps of their party colleague in the neighbouring state, then the only way out is to work for the unity of the party. The party has precisely one and half years to prepare for the 2018 election and the first thing that needs to be done is that all the leaders should bury their hatchet and forgive and forget and put the party’s interest before their selfish interests if they really want the party to win.