SHILLONG, June 28: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance has a penchant for springing a surprise with their nomination of candidates for the presidential election. The nomination of Draupadi Murmu as NDA’s presidential candidate is seen as a tactic to reach out to the tribals, women and the underprivileged sections.
The NDA stratagem has already achieved some success with several political parties from the opposition camp already announcing their support to Murmu’s candidature, prominent among them being Bahujan Samaj Party, Biju Janata Dal and Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress Party.
While 16 political parties including the All India Trinamool Congress and the Indian National Congress have pledged their support to opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha were conspicuous by their absence during filing of nomination on Monday.
The decision of the AITC and Congress leadership to endorse Sinha’s candidature for the Raisina Hill race posed an imposing question before the party’s Meghalaya units — whether to listen to the party high command or respect the tribal sentiments and back Murmu’s candidature to ensure she becomes the first tribal to move into Rashtrapati Bhavan.
However, the two parties in Meghalaya have decided to sideline the tribal candidate, terming it as nothing less than a poll gimmick by the NDA.
“We are going along the party lines. We feel that the BJP has been using the ‘tribal’ card from time to time for gains but has not done anything much for the benefit of the tribals,” AITC Meghalaya chief whip George B Lyngdoh said on Tuesday.
He said laws and policies are only suppressing the tribals whether it is in the form of income tax, harassment from banks, agricultural policies or GST and all polices of the central government have been anti tribal.
“They are playing with tribal sentiments and projecting a leader to win over the tribals which is a political gimmick,” he said.
“Both the central and the state governments have put up a constitutional head to show that they are pro tribals while all their policies are anti tribal,” he added.
Stating that they will not fall for such gimmick and stick with the party directive, Lyngdoh said, “If you are actually pro tribal come up with pro tribal policies not political gimmick to advertise and publicise by putting up a false face in front of the country.”
The Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee also seems to be on the same page as the AITC as far as the presidential election is concerned.
MPCC working president Pynshngainlang N Syiem said they will go by the directives of the party since Murmu’s candidature is a political gimmick of the BJP.
On the other hand, the United Democratic Party (UDP) has come out in open support of the tribal candidate. “We are going with the tribal candidate. It is the need of the hour for us, tribals, to occupy the top post and this is our time. I am sure elected members from other parties will support the tribal candidate and we hope that NDA candidate occupies the top post,” UDP president Metbah Lyngdoh said.
The People’s Democratic Front echoed similar sentiments. “The stand of the PDF is to support the tribal candidate. She is a tribal so we should support her,” PDF president Banteidor Lyngdoh said.
Even the Hill State People’s Democratic Party has announced its support to the NDA nominee.
“We have to support her. We have wished for a long time that a tribal should occupy the highest post in the country. So irrespective of the party (BJP) we want to see a tribal person occupying the chair,” HSPDP president KP Pangniang said.
The presidential election is set to be held on July 18 while the result will be announced three days later. President Ram Nath Kovind’s tenure ends on July 24.
