Bernard blames money, muscle power for his loss

SHILLONG, March 12: Smarting from his defeat at the hands of Chief Minister and NPP supremo, Conrad K. Sangma in the recently-concluded Assembly polls, BJP vice president Bernard N. Marak has now blamed “money power” for his loss.
Marak on Sunday claimed that he and his party would have triumphed had the election been “fair”.
“We cannot fight against money power, police and administration at the same time. The CM was using police, administration and money power,” he claimed.
Conrad retained the South Tura seat defeating Bernard with a margin of 5,016 votes.
“We were not fighting the election against a political party but against money and muscle power,” Bernard said, while adding that government machineries also worked against him and his party and people who voted for him were against corruption.
Asked if the “anti-Christian” tag had caused problems for the BJP, he said the party stood second in many constituencies and even the vote share of the BJP has increased to 13%.
Pointing out that the acceptability of the BJP is increasing in Meghalaya, Bernard said people voted for the party despite all political propaganda of tagging the party as “anti-Christian”.
“Now after elections are over, no more videos and letters are being circulated. This only indicates that all those things were pre-planned,” he said.
Bernard also said that the party would work to strengthen itself in the state in view of the Lok Sabha elections scheduled next year.