UDP candidate Balajied Kupar Synrem, son of late Dr Donkupar Roy, has outdone his father many times over by winning the Shella seat with a margin of 6221 votes. His closest rival Grace Mary Kharpuri the Independent candidate polled 5781 votes followed by PDF candidate MRF Wanswett who got 4327 votes. Dr Donkupar Roy had always won the Shella seat by a small margin. In the last election in 2018 he won by 418 votes. His cumulative win for 7 consecutive terms totalled 3857 votes. In a sense therefore the people of Shella seem to have voted overwhelmingly for Synrem, for the UDP and for the present Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) Government. Ironically, the Congress could only muster 1715 votes and came fourth in the list? This calls for a quick introspection in the Congress camp here because in Haryana and Maharashtra the Congress has been able to show some spunk and regain some of its lost sheen.
What was surprising about this by-poll is that the coalition partners of the MDA, namely the Peoples’ Democratic Front (PDF) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) both set up candidates instead of assisting their political partner in the government, the UDP. Only the National Peoples’ Party (NPP) led by Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma took a mature and deliberate stance to ensure that the legacy of late Dr Donkupar Roy remained intact.
The tone and tenor of the election campaign as far as the UDP was concerned was solemn. It harped on the sympathy factor which seems to have worked because Synrem, the candidate is a political greenhorn. The challenge now is for him to deliver. Shella needs a major development package. The roads are in a pathetic condition despite the fact that the constituency is also the highest limestone producing area with over 300 trucks of limestone per day being supplied through the Bholaganj area to Bangladesh. Added to that is the limestone supplied by Lafarge through conveyor belts also to Chatak in Bangladesh for cement manufacturing. With such rich natural resources, Shella has no business to be so backward infrastructurally, but it is.
Before the Partition this area had brisk trade with former East Bengal and people of Shella even today are better entrepreneurs and traders than their brethren in the hills. But in terms of education this area requires more schools and at least a few colleges to prevent urban migration. Sohra Government College is the only college so far. Although on paper there are two CHCs and 5 PHCs they are functioning in the breach. Synrem will have to deliver better than his father has done in 7 terms because people are now aspirational and expect much more than promises from their elected representatives.