We did not want to contest from ‘weak seats’ in Meghalaya: Ao

SHILLONG, March 24: The BJP on Sunday said it was a conscious decision to not contest from the two “weak seats” in Meghalaya.
BJP national vice president and Meghalaya in-charge, M Chuba Ao on Sunday said the party’s target is to reach the 400-seat mark and there are 164 seats in the country where the party contests but does not win.
“The two seats in Meghalaya are included in the list of weak seats. Even the seats in Mizoram and Nagaland and the Outer Manipur seat are considered to be weak seats. So, we decided why not encourage our alliance partners, for it will also reduce the Congress’ chances of victory,” Ao said.
He defended the decision saying the BJP has not been able to perform well in Meghalaya since 1991. He also said that Meghalaya follows regional-centric politics and it has its own issues.
“The highest number of votes we got in the Shillong seat was 95,000 and the second highest was around 75,000 votes. Similarly in Tura, we got around 33,000 votes. We noticed that our vote share had not increased in the last Assembly elections,” Ao said.
He said according to a survey, if the BJP contests both seats, the Congress may emerge as the eventual winner.
Asked about the resentment among party workers, he said the anger would be there for a few days and then, subside. He did not agree the party’s decision to not contest will affect its vote banks.