Cong charts course without Pole Star

When the state goesto the polls on September 25, it won’t be a cakewalk like last time, when Sangma’s victory margin was over one lakh votes.

Sangma entered politics in 1977 as the Congress candidate for the Tura seat. Since then, he has won six times from here, always as a Congress nominee. The voters in Garo hills are committed Congress followers and in the last Assembly elections, 17 of its MLAs were elected from the 24 Assembly segments here. This is what the Congress and its nominee, former state minister Atul C. Marak, are banking on. However, what must be plaguing the party is not only Sangma’s popularity but also that soon after his expulsion from the Congress and formation of the NCP, nine legislators crossed over to his side. Now all of them are campaigning for him.

Sangma’s rise actually makes quite a story. Forced to quit school at the age of 12 following abject poverty after his father’s death, he was taken under his wings by an Italian missionary, Antonio Buccieri. With Buccieri’s support, Sangma joined anight college, working during the day to pay off his fees, and finished his education. “My marriage to Suradini was the second turning point in my life,” Sangma says. “The Garo tribal society is matriarchal. And so, when I contested for the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1977, my father-in-law threw open his cupboards to meet my expenses.”

That was all the boost Sangma needed. He has not looked back since, and went on to become synonymous with first the seat with 4.6 lakh voters and then with the party in the area.

According to Sangma loyalists, his charisma and parliamentarian capabilities he was a huge hit as the Lok Sabha Speaker are the pride of the Garo community. It is these abilities that are the secret of his success in the national and “international” arena, they claim.

In fact, ask anybody in the remotest village of Tura, and they will say that whatever development activities have been undertaken here are all because of Sangma. “He has brought us an airport, which should be ready bythe turn of the millennium. He is even trying to bring railways to the Garo hills,” says Franklin Sangma, a college student here.

But his detractors in the Congress, including Marak, assert that it is the party and the Gandhi family who have got Sangma to where he is. The NCP general secretary has served in several ministries — Industry, Commerce, Information and Broadcasting, Labour, Coal etc — besides as Lok Sabha Speaker, under successive Congress governments. He was considered a favourite of all party prime ministers, from Indira Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi to Narasimha Rao, and this is what brought him success, says the Congress. Known for his quick wit, Sangma himself quips: “I do not have a job only for the past one year, I’ve only been a member of the Opposition.”

The NCP general secretary’s decision to make an issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin thus took the region, and his own former colleagues, by surprise. This area is dominated by Christians and with both Sangma and Sonia being Catholics,they are unsure where their loyalties lie.

Interestingly, local Church leaders who used to campaign with Sangma in earlier elections have stayed off this time.

Meghalaya Minister of Tourism Deborah Marak accuses Sangma of betraying the Garo people by not taking them into confidence over the foreign origin issue. She says he didn’t consult local partymen either on the matter. “We came to know about it (his decision to quit and form a new party) only through newspapers,” says Riksen Sangma, a secretary of the Tura District Congress. The party is also confident that the foreign origin issue will not wash with the electorate in Garo hills.

His supporters, however, say he had done the right thing by questioning the candidature of Sonia for the highest post. “Look how courageous he is,” says one NCP campaigner. Sangma now tours the villages, asserting: “See, I am the same Sangma. Only the symbol has changed, and you know why.”

But there is one thing that may work against the popular leader and,ironically, it’s his popularity. In the interiors and remotest corners of Tura, Sangma’s is a known name. For the past 22 years, the people have been walking up to polling booths and voting for the “hand” to vote for him. Now his symbol is a “clock”, and in the interiors, it hasn’t started ticking. Mocking Sangma’s own assertion, the district Congress secretary says: “The Congress has not changed. The people of Garo hills have also not changed. It is only Sangma who has changed. Many in the remote areas do not even know that the candidate with the hand symbol is not Purno Sangma.”

There is another problem. While Sangma will have no star campaigner from outside, Marak will have a host of them, including Bollywood bigwigs like Amitabh Bachchan and Dilip Kumar besides one full day of Sonia. Sangma will also have to go out to campaign for other NCP candidates in the North-east besides in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal etc.

But the bubbly former Speaker isn’t worried. He insists voters will elect himas they have done since 1997, and finishes with another one of his witticisms and smiles. “The people don’t want a star campaigner,” according to Sangma. “They want the Pole Star. And they know where to find it.”