The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing up for the 2024 Parliamentary election where the Meghalaya unit is hoping to claim Shillong by unseating incumbent MP Vincent Pala of the Congress.
In addition, the BJP is also preparing for the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council elections, which will also take place in the early part of next year.
Both should pose a challenge for the saffron party, which was unable to increase its share of two seats at this year’s state Assembly election despite oodles of money and star campaigners thrown at the campaign.
The BJP won less than 77,000 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls for the Shillong seat, comfortably behind Pala, who claimed an absolute majority with nearly 4.2 lakh votes.
This time, the BJP has been conducting a series of training sessions and meetings to strengthen the outfit in all constituencies, state BJP president Ernest Mawrie recently told Highland Post.
“We are prepared to face any election, which is also as per the direction of our central leadership,” Mawrie said.
Pala has represented the Shillong seat since 2009 and the Congress has held it without a break since 1998.
Mawrie, however, said that Pala has delivered little for his constituents in all that time, even when he was a Union Minister of State in the Congress-led government until 2014.
When asked about the district council election, Mawrie said that it is the party’s decision that the BJP will contest all the seats and office bearers will soon sit to decide thoroughly on the matter.
