National People’s Party (NPP) national general secretary in-charge finance James K Sangma, on Friday, admitted that the demand for Winter Capital in Tura will be an issue during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, even as he expressed confidence that Tura MP Agatha Sangma will be able to retain her seat.
Agreeing that Winter capital demand and Tura violence issue may come up as electoral issue, the NPP leader said, “There will be many factors during the elections, the elections are always based on issues, so I am sure many factors will come up during the elections and may be the winter capital issue may also come up.”
Following Tura violence, there was no further talk to establish Tura, the headquarters of the Garo Hills region in Meghalaya, as the winter capital of the state.
Meanwhile, with NPP being the only political party to announce candidate for the Tura seat, Sangma said his party is far ahead of other political parties in as far as preparation for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is concerned.
Stating that NPP is far ahead of its competitors in the region, James K Sangma said in Garo Hills, the party’s sitting Tura MP Agatha K Sangma has already started campaigning. “Of course the fever pitch is yet to pick up but on the ground lots of campaigning and lots of meetings have already started.”
“At present, the NPP is far ahead not just in terms of the campaign and in term of outreach but also in term of the fact that our MP has performed very well in the parliament that she has been extensively touring and taking up issues not just pertaining to Garo Hills but also pertaining to the state of Meghalaya,” he said.
James K Sangma informed that the Tura MP had recently led a delegation comprising leaders from Garo Hills and met the union home minister requesting his intervention to rectify the issue, where Garo language was not finding inclusion in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India.
He expressed confidence that Agatha will retain the Tura seat. “In terms of her performance she is doing extremely well so I don’t really see any kind of cause for concern.”
Calling the allegation of the BJP state President against Tura MP Agatha Sangma on central schemes not reaching the people is completely baseless, the former MLA said, “I don’t know which BJP leader said that, but I think he is very ill informed, in terms of the implementation of centrally-sponsored schemes so many have reached the people.”
He maintained that criticism must be based on facts.