Media tirade helped in my victory — Subba

Subba, named in the Rs 38,000-crore Nagaland State Lottery scam by the CAG, is also accused of having a criminal background, however could muster only 34.09 per cent of the valid votes this time against 45.15 per cent in 1998, with the total and victory margin both getting reduced.

“This is because both the ruling Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) as well as the BJP resorted to large-scale rigging. But the poorfellows could not ever think that any degree of rigging cannot put me and my voters down,” Subba claimed.

While Mani Kumar Subba had won by a margin of 1.30 lakh votes in 1998 over his Bharatiya Janata Party rival IP Hazarika, this year his margin came down to a more 35,706 votes. Similarly, while he had polled 2.86 lakh votes in the last year’s elections, this time he managed to poll about 56,000 less.

“Even my own partymen at the district level opposed my candidature and openly campaigned against me. But that too did not help them,” Subba said. At least two senior Congress leaders, former district president Bijit Saikia and former education minister Golok Rajbangahi were suspended after they were found campaigning against the party nominee.

Interestingly, both AGP nominee Kosheswar Bora and BJP candidate RP Sharma were going almost neck and neck with Subba till the last moment, till the latter began picking up.