TURA: Voters of 51-South Tura constituency have given a landslide victory for the NPP and Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma voting him in with the highest record margin of 8421 votes in a four cornered contest that witnessed two of his opponents forfeiting their security deposit.
Out of 22,217 votes that were cast in the August 23rd election, a record 13,656 people voted in favour of Conrad Sangma, while 5235 voters gave the nod to Congress’ Charlotte Momin, 2211 votes went to John Leslee K Sangma and 897 for Chris Kabul A Sangma (both Independents). As many as 218 of the electorate voted for Non of the Above (NOTA) candidates.
The mandate given by the voters of South Tura for the chief minister was staggeringly high. It overtook the highest record margin of the February general elections in which the UDP’s Kyrmen Shylla won from Khliehriat by 8181 votes.
Right from the start ‘go’, the NPP took a lead when counting began at 8 AM in Tura’s Extension Training Centre in Dakopgre on Monday morning.
Postal ballots that were first opened saw the NPP’s Conrad Sangma secure a whooping 21 votes against Congress’ Charlotte W Momin who managed a mere 4 votes. Independent John Leslee K Sangma got two postal ballot votes while Chris Kabul A Sangma drew a blank.
In the three rounds of counting of the votes from 36 polling stations, the chief minister was ahead in all.
He established a lead of 2594 votes by the time the first round had gotten over.
In the second round the margin had leapfrogged to 5900 with the NPP bagging the largest share of 5474 votes against the Congress’ 2168. By the time the last vote had been counted in round three, Conrad Sangma had broken Shylla’s highest victory margin of 8181 held since February, this year.
A beaming chief minister, accompanied by his wife Metab Chandi A Sangma, his mother Soradini K Sangma and a host of NPP MLAs, MDCs and party leaders arrived outside the counting hall to the cheers of hundreds of supporters who waved flags and jostled to shake hands with the new victor from Garo Hills.
Earlier, the chief minister paid a visit to his father’s grave to offer prayers before heading to the counting hall area.
Following the declaration of the results, jubilant NPP supporters took out a procession escorting Conrad Sangma in a colorfully decked open-air gypsy vehicle. The convoy of several dozen cars and motorbikes passed through the main thoroughfares of South Tura constituency singing songs and waving flags. While it was a sweet victory for the NPP in Tura, the same was not to be the case in Ranikor constituency of South West Khasi Hills where their candidate and former Congress minister, Martin Danggo was trounced by the UDP’s Pius Marwein. It was a shock defeat for five time MLA Danggo who had resigned from the Congress and the assembly seat to join the NPP after Ranikor was upgraded into a civil sub-division by the current MDA government.
Danggo was defeated by a margin of 2896 votes. The UDP candidate secured 13,183 votes against the NPP’s 10,287 votes. The PDF candidate and former KHADC CEM Pynshngainlang Syiem came a distant third with 1978 votes while the Congress candidate Jackiush A Sangma had to be contended with just 938 votes.