Meghalaya’s churches do not favour or oppose any one political party over another the chief spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state unit, Mariahom Kharkrang, has said.
In this he went against the opinion of Assam Chief Minister and one of the most powerful BJP figures in the North East, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who derided a particular religion (without going so far as to name it) for turning the tide against the BJP in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur at the recent Lok Sabha election.
“None of the religious groups amongst the Christians, irrespective of denomination, propagate any particular candidate or party,” Kharkrang said.
He admitted that on the eve of elections churches hold special prayers asking for wisdom for the electorate to choose the right candidate and party but “With full confidence I can say that none of the Church are in support of a particular candidate or party,” Kharkrang maintained.
Although the BJP did not field candidates in Meghalaya, it was supporting its ally, the National People’s Party (NPP). The support of the Hindu nationalist outfit was a bit of a double-edged sword, however, as voters in the Christian majority Meghalaya may have been turned off at the prospect of voting for the BJP by proxy, as it were.
The BJP, however, rejects this theory.
Kharkrang said that the NPP has been with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) right from its (NPP’s) inception and they are also part of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).
“So if you go by that logic, that the NPP lost due to the BJP support, then they should have lost in the 2023 [Assembly] elections too,” he said, adding that the NPP must have introspected where it went wrong in the election rather than just blaming the BJP.
Moreover, Kharkrang’s party colleague, South Shillong MLA Sanbor Shullai, said that in the 2019 Parliamentary polls, when the BJP contested the election, it came third in the Shillong seat (Shullai was the candidate at the time).
“It did not affect the Tura seat also where Agatha K Sangma won the 2019 elections with a huge margin and it did not affect our colleague [Vincent] Pala (of the Congress) who won with a huge margin. But this time I don’t know what was the arrangement with the NPP,” Shullai said. “We, the state BJP, at the last moment we were told to support them (NPP) and we did and we lost both seats.”
