TURA: History has long proven that the key to Delhi lies in winning the mandate from three tribal majority districts of Garo Hills, and both opponents, Agatha and Mukul, know this.
The core tribal strongholds of East-North and South Garo Hills districts have in successive elections overwhelmingly voted in favour of Late P A Sangma and the daughter-son duo of Agatha and Conrad.
That is one of the core reasons as to why the Congress and its candidate Mukul Sangma are walking the extra mile to try and change that.
In the last two weeks of campaign, the Congress candidate has made several trips to the three regions to garner support for this election. He has held meetings at Rongjeng, Songsak, Mangsang, Kharkutta, Resubelpara and as far away as Chokpot and remote Siju-Rongara located on the southern tip of the state bordering Bangladesh.
When Conrad K Sangma contested the by-election from Tura following the death of his father P A Sangma, the ten assembly constituencies in these three districts gave him a record 1,43,292 votes and literally tipped the scales in his favour.
The Congress candidate and then chief minister Mukul Sangma’s wife, Dikkanchi D Shira, was unable to catch up managing to secure a total of only 45,634 votes.
In fact, these tribal constituencies of Kharkutta, Mendipathar, Resubelpara, Bajengdoba, Songsak, Rongjeng, Williamnagar, Siju-Rongara, Baghmara and Chokpot gave record margins of five digit numbers.
Kharkutta and Rongjeng, for instance, gave the highest number of votes in recent election history of Garo Hills for the NPP— 18907 and 17045 votes, respectively.
This time round, there is an aggressive campaign by the Congress to try and change the narrative.
On Thursday and Friday, Congress candidate Mukul Sangma returned to these constituencies to ensure his party position remains firm holding a series of meetings
at Williamnagar, Adokgre, Rongjeng and Nengkhra. He has chalked out several more meetings in different localities of Williamnagar in the next few hours.
But the NPP’s Agatha is also not leaving anything to chance.
On Friday, the youngest daughter of P A Sangma set up camp in the South Garo Hills region visiting voters in the remote Siju-Rongara region.
Her brother and chief minister, on the other hand, is also giving much needed support to his sibling, landing up in the eastern belt to meet with voters in different venues of Songsak assembly seat, a constituency currently held by Mukul Sangma.
Conrad Sangma held rallies at Chiading, Chidimit, Songkama, Rongal and Aglagre, all crucial election centres of Mukul Sangma’s Songsak assembly seat.
“We are optimistic we will even win from Mukul’s assembly seat,” a confident NPP leader claimed.
But the Congress is not buying these claims, as their leaders believe the once impregnable citadel of the NPP has been breached on the eastern front.