The Congress Party is confident that it will be able to retain the Mawryngkneng and Rajabala Assembly seats at the forthcoming by-elections and will give the National People’s Party a strong fight in this month’s Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) election as well.
The by-elections were necessitated following the deaths of sitting MLAs David Nongrum of Mawryngkneng and Azad Zaman in Rajabala.
Speaking to Highland Post today, Mawsynram MLA Himalaya Shangpliang said that, as far as Mawryngkneng is concerned, the party is positive that its candidate, Highlander Kharmalki, will be able to succeed Nongrum.
Kharmalki recently quit the People’s Democratic Front to run on a Congress ticket and brought several of his supporters over to the Congress camp.
“We have started the campaign, including door-to-door meetings with the people of the constituency, to create awareness and bat for our candidate,” Shangpliang said. “There are still many issues concerning governance in the state that we will discuss during the campaign and perhaps the public will understand the problems they are facing in terms of electricity, price rise, unemployment and many others. We are hopeful that people will give their support to the Congress so that the Congress can address these issues in the best possible ways on the floor of the house.”
The Congress has formed six zones in the constituency involving the elected representatives and leaders of the party in Mawryngkneng to ensure victory in the by-election, the date of which has not been fixed by the Election Commission.
With regards to the Rajabala seat, Shangpliang said that Congress has decided to allot the party ticket to the widow of Zaman and claimed that there is overwhelming and wholehearted support for the party candidate.
Meanwhile, with regards to the GHADC elections, the Mawsynram MLA said that Congress is involved in an intense fight with the NPP.
“The party campaign is going on very strongly and we are hopeful that we can fight the NPP and see good results,” he said.
