In Meghalaya’s Tikrikilla, a dusty plain town bordering Assam, it is a crowded fray for the February 27 Assembly polls, just like the rest of the state, where new parties spring up ahead of every major election. Tikrikilla has just about 30,000 voters, but as many as six candidates are in contention in the constituency. But Nogendra Rabha, the headmaster of Tikrikilla’s only high school, has not even bothered to find out the names of all the candidates, even though he has interest in politics. The reason, says Rabha, lies in the point that in the final analysis the electoral battle in Meghalaya would be about one overarching face-off — between Chief Minister and National People’s Party (NPP) president Conrad Sangma and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and ex-CM Mukul Sangma. And the battlelines between the two sides have been drawn most sharply in the state’s Garo Hills — the home turf of both the Sangmas (the two are not related). “They are the role models for Garo society, as a voter you have to choose whose side you are on,” adds Rabha. As the high-voltage campaign for the Meghalaya polls drew to a close Saturday, the turf war between the two Sangma dynasties — with at least four family members from each side contesting this time — has boiled over. While this is not a new battle, the dynamics this time are somewhat different: Conrad is seeking re-election after a tumultuous five-year reign, while Mukul has his reputation at stake as he leads the TMC’s first major foray into the state Assembly polls. Faced with rising anti-incumbency and allegations of corruption in the run-up to the polls, Conrad has, in his campaign, frequently invoked his late father Purno Agitok Sangma’s work. The legacy of Purno, a former Lok Sabha speaker and arguably Meghalaya’s tallest leader ever, continues to endure in the Garo Hills. "Whatever you say, PA Sangma is still popular even if he is gone. The name still strikes a chord in this part of Meghalaya," said Tengsak Momin, the president of the Garo Students Union. As he wrapped up his campaign Friday, Conrad said, “What drives me is what exactly he (PA Sangma) instilled in me – values and ideology – and I work towards that.” Mukul, on the other hand, has been unrelenting in his attacks on the NPP-led government’s track record over the last five years, keeping his guns trained on Conrad. A popular medical doctor by profession, Mukul’s support transcends ethnic divides, a rarity in a state where ethnicity often plays a major role in politics. His salvos at Conrad have largely made use of ammunition from the widespread perception that the NPP had been a “proxy” for its former Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) ally BJP although they often used to spar publicly. In his final campaign rally at Mahendraganj, Meghalaya’s leading daily, The Shillong Times, quoted Mukul as telling the crowd, “On March 6, 2018, I was relieved of my duties as the chief minister. BJP leaders from Delhi came to Meghalaya and appointed a CM (Conrad), who was not even elected from any constituency back then. Only after becoming CM, he became an MLA. This shows that we did not choose the MDA government but it was done by leaders from Delhi. It was not the mandate of the people of Meghalaya but an imposition.” But for all of Mukul’s attacks on Conrad over the NPP being allegedly controlled by the BJP leaders from Delhi, the TMC itself has had to contend with its “Bengali party image”, with many observers maintaining that beyond Mukul’s personal appeal the Mamata Banerjee-led party itself has little traction among common voters in the state. However, Mukul insists that the TMC has been received well by Meghalaya’s people. "I have no reason to believe that we (TMC) won't have the numbers. It is the matter of believing in myself and believing in the people. These two things… Once they synergise then things work out," he told The Indian Express in Shillong recently. However, the Meghalaya polls is far from being a two-way contest. The BJP is now better placed in the state than it was five years ago. Some observers say that many voters look at Prime Minister Narendra Modi “favourably”, which makes up to some extent for its lack of a local face. “The only thing holding BJP back is that they are perceived to be anti-Christian, but if it was not for that, people recognise the benefits of supporting the party at the Centre,” said a Tura-based entrepreneur. The Congress has been buffeted by defections, which has forced it to field greenhorns in most constituencies. However, the grand old party still has some pockets of support at the grassroots. Also, the regional parties of the state — especially in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills, which elects 36 MLAs — have traditionally played a key role in deciding who actually rules from Shillong. The NPP-led government, too, was foisted by a slew of small local parties, including UDP, and independents, whose combined strength in the 60-member Assembly had added up to 16 after the 2018 polls. Unlike 2018, the lack of a united opposition, with Mukul defecting from the Congress to the TMC, may lead to splitting of vote this time, which the NPP sees as its advantage. “The TMC has emerged from the Congress. The Congress has got divided into half. From TMC again, four to five MLAs have left. Now they are left with a handful of MLAs. If you compare it to the Congress in 2018, the TMC is much weaker now. The Congress was a strong, united opposition, and now because of the political circumstances, they (the Opposition) are divided,” Conrad told The Indian Express recently. This time, there are also parties and organisations that claim to have challenged the status quo by fighting the elections on issues instead of money. However, old timers say that like on most occasions in the recent past, it will all come down to post-poll political manoeuvrings, given that Meghalaya has almost always thrown up a fractured mandate over the last several decades. Momin of the Garo Students’ Union said that politicians and parties would say “anything” to pull each other down now, but that would not stop them from joining each other’s hands after polls. “A lot depends on the action the day the results are declared — horse-trading, poaching, monetary benefits to be offered. As they say, there are no permanent enemies or friends in politics, especially in Meghalaya,” he said.
