Anti-incumbency is the main factor responsible for the National People’s Party’s (NPP) less than stellar performance in the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) election, the results of which were announced today, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said.
However, what might be more galling to the NPP president was his party’s loss to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Tura; Sangma is the MLA for South Tura in the Meghalaya Assembly. The NPP lost Tura by around 500 votes to the BJP, which made its attack on perceived corruption and incompetence in the NPP’s running of the GHADC one of its main planks during the campaign.
The NPP managed to win 11 seats, one less than the Congress, despite brashly claiming that it would pocket more than half of the 29 the seats up for grabs.
Nevertheless, Sangma said that anti-incumbency affected all parties, with the public appearing to be disgruntled not with any particular party but in the sitting MDCs as a whole, many of whom were unable to hold on to their seats, including incumbent Chief Executive Member Dipul R Marak.
Another issue that hurt the NPP, at least in Tura, was the fact that the previous executive committee, which was led by the NPP, owed its own employees 30 months’ worth of salaries.
“Tura is a very interesting constituency because most of the employees who worked in the district council are from Tura. Therefore a large chunk of them, I presume, have voted against the government in terms of the EC that was earlier formed by the NPP for not being able to pay salary for 30 months,” Sangma said. “We got 8,300 votes and the BJP got 8,800 and they managed to win this particular seat, which is very important to me personally.”
The Chief Minister welcomed the mandate of the people and concluded by saying that his party will work harder. “It is the NPP’s turn to ensure that we strengthen our organisation and work harder for the elections in the near future,” he stated.
