Buoyed by their Tura Lok Sabha seat win, the Congress Party is confident that it will be able to retain the Gambegre Assembly seat when the by-election is eventually held.
The seat became vacant as the incumbent MLA, Saleng Sangma, won the recent Parliamentary election.
Speaking to Highland Post today, Congress leader Manuel Badwar maintained that the Congress, which won an outright majority of votes in the Lok Sabha election in Garo Hills, will perform favourably at the by-election.
“Half of the vote share came to the Congress in Garo Hills and there is also an increase of our vote share in the entire state and no one can say that the people have rejected the Congress. We have full hope that the Congress will also win the by-election,” he said.
The public rejected the National People’s Party (NPP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) to pick Saleng as their MP and the Congress is gaining strength from the grassroots up, Badwar added.
There is still no word on who the party candidate will be to fill Saleng’s shoes in Gambegre, however, with the committee to decide on the candidate yet to sit for a meeting.
Badwar said that the district committee will propose a candidate and the state-level committee will then take a call based on winnability and other factors.
Former cabinet minister Deborah Marak is rumoured to be in the running for the Congress ticket. The seat will be hard-fought over and the Congress will be desperate to keep it as defeat would mean that the TMC would become the largest opposition party in the Assembly. With the vacancy, the Congress has four seats and the TMC five. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also eyeing the constituency as it has no representative from Garo Hills in the Assembly, while the NPP also covets Gambegre as it would put to rest suggestions that it is losing popularity in Garo Hills following the drubbing in the Parliamentary election.
Meanwhile, the state Congress, including its women’s and youth wings, has decided to felicitate Saleng on his win on July 6. All Congress leaders and party workers have been invited to attend the function.
