Sangma to fight Assembly elections

Former Lok Sabha Speaker and nine-time MP Purno A Sangma on Thursday announced that he would return to Meghalaya...

Former Lok Sabha Speaker and nine-time MP Purno A Sangma on Thursday announced that he would return to Meghalaya politics and contest the ensuing Assembly elections from his hometown Tura.

“The party has decided to project me as the next Chief Minister of Meghalaya and I have accepted the challenge,” the senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader said at a press conference called to announce the party’s preparations for the Meghalaya Assembly elections.

Sangma said frequent change of chief ministers had adversely affected the overall growth and development of the hill state despite its rich natural resources. “How can a state progress when chief ministers are changed so frequently?” he asked.

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The Tura MP said the people of Meghalaya were yearning for change, and the next Assembly elections, slated for sometime around February, would be the occasion for NCP to capture power in the state.

“The youth of the state are now with the NCP. The common man is already too disgusted with the Congress. There hasn’t been even one positive development on the socio-economic front that anybody in Meghalaya can point out in the past five years,” Sangma, also a former CM of the state, said.

Sangma said the NCP would contest in 55 out of 60 seats in the state. “The NCP will gain power even without contesting five seats,” a confident Sangma claimed. He added that the NCP would contest 20 seats in Nagaland and 10 in Tripura, where Assembly elections will be held simultaneously with Meghalaya.