SHILLONG, April 16: Smarting under not so impressive performance, the National People’s Party (NPP) has conceded that the allegations of corruption on the NPP-led EC in GHADC by BJP has had some impact on party’s performance in the GHADC polls for which the results were announced on Thursday.
The ruling NPP with its might and power was expecting a comfortable majority but the party managed only 11 seats as against its rival Congress’ 12 seats.
The below par performance of the NPP has come even as Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma led the entire campaign from front and extensively toured throughout the Garo Hills region since polls were announced.
The biggest shocker for the NPP came as all the top leaders of the party who were the CEM, Deputy CEM and chairman in the outgoing house lost the elections.
Speaking about the verdict, NPP state president, WR Kharlukhi said, “We accept the verdict of the people and we have to work hard from now and prepare ourselves for the Assembly elections.”
When asked if corruption issue has hurt the NPP in the polls, Kharlukhi said, “I don’t know but the way things have gone it seems that those accusations have had some impact on the voters and all our top leaders were defeated.” “We never expected that we will lose in our base in North Garo Hills and East Garo Hills,” Kharlukhi said while adding that NPP never defended the allegations of corruption and all it was saying that the matter should be discussed in the MDA meet.
Months before the GHADC polls, the State BJP took on NPP and accused large scale corruption in the GHADC right under the nose of the NPP-led EC .
Pointing out that GHADC result is a wakeup call for the party, Kharlukhi said that the party should not be complacent.