Tura returns Sangma to LS for 9th time in a row

Former Lok Sabha Speaker and NCP candidate Purno A Sangma has romped home in the Tura parliamentary by-election, defeating his nearest polit...

Former Lok Sabha Speaker and NCP candidate Purno A Sangma has romped home in the Tura parliamentary by-election, defeating his nearest political rival, Congress candidate Mukul Sangma by a majority of 1,01,176 votes. With today’s victory, the Garo Hills strongman has won the Tura parliamentary seat for a record ninth time.

Mukul Sangma had managed a better fight in the last parliamentary election, garnering 1,19,175 votes to P A Sangma’s 1,91,175 votes. This time, however, Purno Sangma has been able to put a substantial distance between himself and his rival. Talking to reporters, Purno Sangma said, ‘‘Winning the elections was a formality, I was just curious by what margin I would win this time.’’

The Tura by-poll was held on February 16 after Purno Sangma resigned from the Trinamul Congress and rejoined the NCP. Sangma first contested the Tura parliamentary elections in 1977 and has never lost there ever since.

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Sangma had previously always contested as a Congress candidate, and has been a Union minister and the Lok Sabha Speaker under the Congress, but he resigned from the party in 1999 to form the NCP with Sharad Pawar over Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin issue.

The decline in Congress votes for former deputy chief minister Mukul Sangma is being ascribed to the police firing in Tura and Williamnagar that killed 10 students who were part of demonstrations over the Meghalaya Board of School Education issue on September 30 last year.

The restructuring and revamping of MBoSE, which has it’s headquarters in Tura, became the biggest election plank for P A Sangma. After the firing, Mukul Sangma, then deputy chief minister, had to resign.

To add to Mukul’s woes, the Garo Students Union was up in arms against the Congress. Some of its members had in fact asked voters not to vote for Mukul Sangma till West Garo Hills deputy commissioner and Returning Officer P Sampath Kumar had to rein them in by threatening legal action.

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