Elections to the 60 member, Meghalaya Assembly begins at 7 am today. In the fray are 370 candidates of which 32 are women. The Congress has fielded candidates in 59 seats (election in Williamnagar is countermanded due to the death of Jonathone Sangma, the NCP candidate); the BJP in 47, NPP in 52 seats and the regional parties between then are contesting 42 seats. In Garo Hills the mood is sombre following the death of Jonathone Sangma the NCP candidate from Williamnagar. Most of the faces in the fray are tried and tested. So “change” as promised by all political parties seems like a pipe dream. There’s nothing much to celebrate about democracy in Meghalaya. On the contrary people here ought to introspect why democracy has failed their noble ideals.
Political analyst believe the fight is largely between the NPP and Congress in Garo Hills and between the NPP, Congress and regional parties in Khasi-Jaintia Hills. The prediction this time is that Meghalaya will have a hung assembly since no party will get an absolute majority. This is a rerun of past elections, barring 2013 when the Congress got 29 seats, two short of an absolute majority. Independents later supported the Congress-led Meghalaya United Alliance (MUA) to form the Government. This time around it will be difficult for the Congress to mop up so many seats as it is also battling anti-incumbency after an eight-year rule. Hence Meghalaya’s next government will be a hotch-potch coalition of parties. Now whether this will result in another period of political chaos is also a moot point.
Whichever way we look at it politicians will continue to have a field day while for the large majority of people February 27 or March 3 will just another ordinary day. Meghalaya needs robust public policies that citizens can engage with and hold the Government accountable. The state has been functioning without an education, health or youth policy for over 45 years. Despite the ban on coal mining by the NGT in 2014 on account of the environmentally destructive and humanly unsafe rat hole mining, the state has failed to come up with a mining policy. This informs us how important governance has been for the Mukul Sangma government. As someone rightly said, “We have been moving on auto-pilot.