By H Srikanth
A couple of days before the assembly elections, when Conrad Sangma claimed that his party, the NPP would repeat what Williamson Sangma did in 1972, many thought that it was nothing more than a political rhetoric. But the final tally shows Conrad is almost correct in his predictions. The NPP won 26 out of 59 seats. Apart from retaining 15 MLA seats, the NPP could wrest 11 seats from other parties. It got 18 seats in the Garo Hills and 8 seats in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills. Its total vote share is around 31 percent which is more than the combined vote share of the Congress and the TMC.
The media projected Mukul Sangma, who left the Congress Party and joined TMC in 2021, as a potential challenger to Conrad Sangma. Mamata Banerjee saw in the elections the possibility of expanding the TMC’s influence beyond Bengal. Despite tall electoral promises that Mukul made to the voters, the TMC ended up with just five seats–four from the Garo Hills and one from the Khasi Hills. Mukul Sangma, who contested in two constituencies, was defeated in one, and won with a slender margin in another. The NPP candidates defeated Mukul’s other family members, contesting the elections. The TMC received less than 14 percent of the total votes polled. Likewise, the Congress, which lost all its stalwarts to other parties, ended up with a tally of only 5 MLAs. Its percentage of total vote share fell to a little over 13%. Ms. Santa Mary Shylla, a little known NPP woman candidate, defeated Vincent Pala, the State Congress Chief and sitting MP from Shillong. The elections is also the BJP’s pride. The party which was part of the Conrad-led MDA government severed its relations with the NPP and fielded its candidates in all 60 seats. In its high-profile campaign, its national leaders started accusing the MDA government to be the most corrupt and inefficient government and Meghalaya the most corrupt state in the country. The national media also projected around 10 seats for the BJP and expected it to play the kingmaker’s role in Meghalaya. But the results came as a shock to the BJP, as it just managed to hold on the two seats that it won in 2018.
The United Democratic Party (UDP), a regional party which was an alliance partner, increased its vote share to over 16 percent and its seats tally to eleven, five more than what it got in 2018. Voice of People’s Party (VoPP), a new militant party with its support base in Khasi-Jaintia Hills, could secure four seats. PDF and HSPDP, the other two regional parties got two seats each. Two independent candidates also won. The KAM, which fielded three candidates and ran a campaign raising several relevant issues, won the hearts of the people looking for an alternative politics, but could not win any seats.
Conrad’s ride to power is not so smooth. The ministers in his government faced charges of corruption and inefficiency. The Assam-Meghalaya border agreement that he initiated was not to the satisfaction of certain civil society organizations in the state. Conrad was accused of not doing enough when the Assam police killed five villagers in Mukroh, a village bordering Assam. Incidents such as the collapse of the steel dome of the newly constructed Assembly building, lathi-charge on the agitating teachers, and the police encounter of Cheristerfield Thangkhiew, an ex-militant leader in Shillong, were also widely condemned by the public. The MDA’s poor governance in the education, health, and public distribution sectors was also highlighted in the media.
Notwithstanding the accusations, Conrad Sangma commands a positive image as a young, intelligent, far-sighted and amiable leader. Some development and welfare initiatives that he has taken up during his tenure added to his popularity. But more than his charisma and achievements, political dynamics in the state appeared to have come to his help. Until 2018, only the Congress Party had its presence both in the Garo Hills and Khasi-Jaintia Hills. The local ethnic and regional parties were confined to parts of the hills. In a state where ethnicity, sub-nationalism and personality-based politics dominate, there was no other party in the state which had support in all the three hill regions of Meghalaya. Even when P A Sangma formed the NPP in 2013, it hardly had any takers in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills. The political situation, however, changed after the death of PA Sangma in 2016.
Mukul Sangma was the Chief Minister for over seven years from 2010 to 2018. He was an able administrator, but some of his own colleagues in the Congress party found him adamant and dictatorial. Mukul Sangma could not form the government in 2018, even though the Congress then emerged as the largest single party. Conrad, being the son of legendary PA Sangma, had an advantage in the Garo Hills. But what came in his favour was the victory of many bigwigs such as Prestone Tynsong, Sniawbhalang Dhar and Coming One Ymbon in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills who joined the NPP. After Conrad formed the government in 2018, the Congress high command yielded to the anti-Mukul lobby and in his place installed his rival, Vincent Pala, as the state chief. Mukul Sangma, who could not accept the high command decision, left the Congress party in protest along with eleven other Congress MLAs and joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The move led to the decline of the Congress party and helped the further consolidation of the NPP. The NPP leaders, who are wealthy, spent a lot of money during the election campaign to retain or attract the voters’ attention. But apart from the money factor, the inability of the leaders of Congress, TMC and BJP to project themselves as potential alternatives to Conrad Sangma, facilitated the victory of the NPP.
The final election tally shows NPP is only short of only five seats required for forming the government. It is not necessary for the NPP to align with the BJP to form the government. If Conrad wants to he could have aligned with the UDP and some other local alliance partners, and form the next government. However, Conrad finds it useful to have BJP as an alliance partner, as the hill state, which lacks resources, depends on the centre for finances. Although the BJP played no role in the NPP’s victory, it makes pragmatic sense to keep the BJP in good humour as long as it remains in power at the centre. It is a humiliation for the BJP to join the government after making much hue and cry against Conrad Sangma’s misrule. Still, the BJP’s national leadership prefers the party to join the NPP- led government so that it could show to the rest of India that the saffron party is part of the governments of almost all north-eastern states. Considering the volley of charges levelled against him, what Conrad could achieve was indeed remarkable. By being in power as Chief Minister for a full term and riding the party to power for the second time in a row, Conrad Sangma proved himself more successful than his legendary father, PA Sangma.
(The writer teaches Political Science in NEHU. Views are personal)