By Barnes Mawrie
The Meghalaya assembly election 2023, will be remembered for its highly charged patriotic emotions created among the voters. In the course of this election 2023, we have also witnessed how patriotic sentiments played a great role in the victory of a new political party, the Voice of Peoples’ Party (VPP). In fact, their victories came as a great surprise to many people in the state. They have become the “dark horses” in Meghalaya politics. The credit of their success goes to the patriotic speeches belted out by the candidates and their supporters during the campaigns. Patriotic sentiments are easily absorbed by the youth, as in the case of all communities, and thus we have seen how the young voters be it in Mawlai or Mawryngkneng constituencies, have tilted the balance in the VPP’s favour.
Emotions are natural when it comes to such events like elections where candidates hail from different political parties as well as from various ethnic communities. However, when emotions supersede rationality, there is always a danger of a violent spill-over. We are witnessing some of these now and more may occur in the coming days. The conflagration of the HSPDP MLA’s office by his own party supporters for his decision to join the NPP-led alliance, reveals an ugly development in Meghalaya’s politics. But as of now, such patriotic emotions seem like a deflated balloon coming to nothing at all and social media today reveals an ugly mudslinging at each other.
The results of the election ended on a usual note with no single party crossing the magic number. The latest political development confirms the saying that “in politics there are no permanent friends and enemies.” As of today, the MDA 2.0 has been joined by the UDP, PDF, HSPDP apart from the BJP and the two Independents. This appears to be the only solution to the political impasse. Unfortunately with the UDP entering the government, the Opposition is reduced to a mere 14, an unhealthy situation in a democracy.
There is a strong undercurrent of anti-Garo sentiments among many parties which was quite evident during the election campaigns. In a state where the Khasis and Garos have decided to co-exist in peace and harmony since the genesis of the state in 1972, such racist sentiments are most unwanted and truly deplorable. Considering the fact that NPP consists of party members from many racial groups of Northeast India, it is utterly wrong to label it as a Garo party just because it was founded by late Shri P. A. Sangma and is now headed by his son, Shri Conrad Sangma. History tells us that every political party is founded by someone or the other belonging to a particular ethnic community but that does not mean it is a private property of that family. Probably, in the next decade we may have a Khasi or a Naga or a Mizo as leader of NPP and that is the beauty of democracy. Finally the other parties have realized that power beckons them and have decided to support the NPP. With so many splinter parties, can there be an alternative party to NPP? The fact that NPP has risen from 20 seats in the last election to 26 seats in this election, shows that the people of the state still repose their trust in them. In a democracy, the choice of the majority should be respected at all costs.
Dr. Jemino Mawthoh has rightly pointed out that it would be difficult for the opposition parties to unite in order to form a government because of their diverse ideologies and interests and the strange bed-fellows that it would entail. The only way to offer a serious challenge to the NPP is for these splinter parties to merge into one regional party. However, this seems like a wishful thinking knowing that these leaders are affected by the JAP virus (Jealousy, Ambition, Pride). It is ironical that Meghalaya which is such a tiny state, has produced so many political parties even more than those found in big states like West Bengal or UP. Every other quinquennium someone comes up with a new political party. We seem to grow by dividing ourselves. This is what I would call a self imposed “divide and rule.” When will Meghalaya see only one or at most two regional parties? That is a million dollar question.
Finally, is growth and development not the primary agenda of every candidate and the aspirations of every constituency? It is time for the people of Meghalaya to get out of a ghetto mentality and consider NPP as one of the state’s political parties and not as a party of a particular area or worse still of a particular ethnic community. The NPP-led government may be accused of corruption, yet in reality which government in the past 50 years of our statehood, was free of corruption? I do not mean to compromise with evil here but what I intend to say is that corruption is an inherent evil in our country’s political system and so we have to learn to live with it whether we like it or not. Let us not forget that even the AAP which emerged on a philosophy of clean politics, today it is marred by numerous scams. What people expect from even a “corrupt” government, is that it brings about Peace, Development and Progress (PDP).
Definitely, it is the duty of the citizens to question the transparency of their government from time to time and to evaluate its performance in terms of PDP. In a democratic system, the citizens have the power to teach hard lessons to non-performing governments. Let us choose the democratic path and not indulge in violence and anti-social activities.