From Our Correspondent
TURA, Aug 1: Former North Tura MLA John Leslee K Sangma has termed Chief Minister Conrad Sangma’s condemnation of the ‘drag act depicting the Last Supper, during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics 2024’ as a ‘cheap attempt to get political mileage and to hoodwink the people to gain some footing in the upcoming by-elections’.
“When the Chief Minister says religious sentiments must be respected, I would like to say that he must practice what he preaches and should not pretend to be deaf and dumb at what is happening in his own constituency and what has happened in the month of February 2023, where a man named Georgeman Marak, the general secretary of the NPP of Williamnagar along with three women and two men, all belonging to the party, deliberately hurt my religious sentiment and the religious sentiments of my fellow Christians by degrading and distorting the Christian song which is very sacred and has a powerful testimony for all Christians about our faith and about Christianity,” the former MLA said.
Earlier in 2023, the said NPP leader made a video where he and others were shown singing the Gospel song, ‘I have decided to follow Jesus’, albeit, replacing the word ‘Jesus’ with NPP.
“I had filed a case against the perpetrators but have not heard of any action against them by the Party or the Government. I have also not heard of any apology or condemnation from the Party in this mater or from Conrad Sangma for hurting the religious sentiments by members of his party the NPP,” Marak said.
The former MLA also criticised Chief Minister Conrad Sangma for allegedly ‘flooding Tura town with wine stores etc as well as for ‘conducting official government programmes on Sunday’.