SHILLONG: Former Cabinet minister and senior Congress leader, Ronnie V Lyngdoh, believes the BJP has forced a social worker like Sanbor Shullai to contest the Lok Sabha elections unable to find any other candidate.
Shullai is the party’s candidate for the Shillong Lok Sabha seat, election to which will be held on April 11 along with the Tura seat.
Talking to The Shillong Times here on Tuesday, Lyngdoh said, “ Sanbor Shullai is more of a social worker than a legislator or a parliamentarian.”
He said that the BJP was probably unable to find a candidate and hence they must have forced Shullai to contest the poll since not contesting would definitely harm a national party like the BJP. According to Lyng-doh, BJP fielded candidates from both seats at the last moment only to fool the people of the state as sitting out the elections would have exposed their ties with the UDP and the NPP.
“NPP is part of NDA and NEDA while UDP is also part of NEDA. It’s as simple as that,” Lyngdoh said. Both NDA at the Centre and NEDA in the North East are led by BJP. Asked about the strong base of non-tribal votes of the saffron party, he said that all non- tribals were not with the BJP.
On the Tura Lok Sabha seat, which is a strong bastion of NPP, he said that the party won last time since there was a sympathy wave for the late Purno Sangma whereas this time, Congress has fielded a popular and tall leader like Mukul Sangma.
It may be mentioned that the Shillong seat, which is held by Congress MP Vincent Pala for the last two terms, is witnessing a multi-cornered fight with as many as six candidates in the fray. On the other hand, the prestigious Tura seat is witnessing a triangular contest among the Congress, NPP and BJP.