From Saurav Borah
TURA, Feb 18: Former legislator and United Democratic Party (UDP) candidate from South Tura constituency John Leslee K Sangma is confident that the regional party will “rise and emerge stronger as a party in Garo Hills”.
“All this time, UDP has not been able to make any headway in Garo Hills. However, I am confident of changing that as we have very competent people here. But the only thing was that they were not able to connect the loose ends before. We will rectify that and you will see UDP emerging stronger as a party in Garo Hills in the days to come,” John Leslee said in an exclusive interaction with The Shillong Times at his Balading residence here on Saturday.
“We are going to make an effort to see that we also make our presence felt as a party in the coming Assembly election along with the GHADC elections,” he said.
Reflecting on the past, the former MLA said, “Misinformation (regarding the party) was fed to the people of Garo Hills by none other than late PA Sangma, which is why I have said that he is the architect of dubbing UDP in Garo Hills as a ‘Khasi’ party. Nonetheless, better days of UDP in Garo Hills are on the anvil.”
Development ‘going haywire’
On the other hand, development, John Leslee said, has gone haywire in Garo Hills.
“It has gone in the wrong direction and my biggest challenge would be to bring development back to the right direction. Public space has been hijacked. To cite an instance, the single (one footpath space meant for pedestrians, including school children, has been reduced by placing huge flower pots (costing Rs 7300 each) in the name of beautification (under the Tura Smart City project) and erecting streetlights (costing Rs 1 lakh each) in the name of development,” he claimed. “Likewise, the (renovated) Chandmary field, where earlier youths from 15 localities of Tura played, now can be only used by children after paying and enrolling. One cannot just enter there and play football or any other game now. So much so that the inter-school sports competition has to be held not on this ground but at another playground in Balalgre, about 18 km away from Tura town. This is where things have gone wrong,” Sangma said.
Key agenda
The former legislator further said that his main agenda in this election would be to ensure “protection of the Christians and the Christian way of life.”
“Atrocities have been happening in the name of religion in the country and they have to be stopped. Tolerance is the need of the hour and other religions have to be respected. In Garo Hills, the Christians, Hindus and Muslims, or for that matter people from any other religion, have been living harmoniously for years and decades,” John Leslee said.
He also said that he was against the Conrad Sangma government’s “dream to convert Meghalaya to a gambling destination of India.”
Candidate-centric poll
On how he would project the UDP as a party to reckon with in the coming election, the former MLA said, “Election here is not about the party alone. Do you think that A.L Hek and Sanbor Shullai got elected last time because they had contested from the BJP. It is about electing the right candidate. People look at the candidate in an election. But yes, later, at the time of formation of the government, they also look up to the party,” Sangma said.
“As far as UDP is concerned, we believe in our motto of ‘Unity, Development and Peace,’” he added.