SHILLONG: The fight for Ranikor Assembly seat has turned critical for the National People’s Party, the ruling ally in the coalition government, with most of its partners deciding to join the by-poll race.
NPP does not have any coalition partners on board for its Ranikor candidate, former Congress MLA Martin M Danggo.
UDP will field Pius Marwein. PDF chief PN Syiem is also in the fray. UDP has already got support from HSPDP, hence turning the by-poll into a faceoff with NPP.
The Congress is also set to field a candidate.
HSPDP with UDP
Talking to media persons here on Thursday, Cabinet Minister and HSPDP MLA Samlin Malngiang said HSPDP and UDP are partners in the Regional Democratic Alliance since before and the party would support the UDP candidate wholeheartedly.
He also said the decision to support UDP in the by-poll will not have any impact on the MDA government.
However, NPP state unit president WR Kharlukhi remained unfazed by the developments because “every election is tight but when the results come out, it is a different ball game altogether”. “We will assess the political situation and fight the election and everything will be known on the day of the result,” he said as he expressed confidence that the NPP will win both Ranikor as well as South Tura.
NCP support
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which is an ally in the NPP-led MDA government, may help NPP in South Tura by-poll though the matter is yet to be decided by the party.
However, NCP MLA and state president Saleng Sangma on Thursday told reporters that the matter is yet to be decided.
Conrad Sangma who is yet to be elected has to win South Tura by-poll to continue as the chief minister.
But NCP has not decided whether to support NPP in Ranikor but Saleng made it clear that the party would not field any candidate there.
Reacting to a query, Saleng said the party is contemplating fielding candidate in the district council elections scheduled to be held next year, adding that as far as Lok Sabha elections are concerned, the matter has to be discussed with the central leadership in Delhi.
When asked how he would revive NCP, which secured only one seat in the last Assembly elections, Saleng said he joined NCP at the last moment as the president and he had no time to organise the party.
He also said that the former president of the party never allowed others to perform and himself left the party later.
“But this is just a start for the party and we have started from zero, now we are on and we hope to have two-three MLAs from the party in future,” he added.
