Congress fields Mukul Sangma in Tura, Vincent in Shillong

SHILLONG: The All India Congress Committee (AICC) has decided to field former chief minister and present leader of the opposition in Meghalaya, Mukul Sangma, from the Tura Lok Sabha seat and sitting MP Vincent H Pala from Shillong.
The names were were approved at the screening committee meeting of the AICC in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Mukul was elected to the assembly from his traditional bastion, Ampati, and Songsak constituency in East Garo Hills district in the February, 2018, assembly election.However, he gave up Ampati and retained Songsak. Later, in a by-election, his daughter Miani D Shira was elected to the assembly from Ampati.
The Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) has welcomed the decision of the AICC to field Mukul and Vincent from the Tura and Shillong Lok Sabha constituencies respectively. State Congress spokesperson and legislator Himalaya Shangpliang expressed optimism that a 'tall leader' like Mukul would win the Tura seat. The Tura parliamentary seat, which was represented in the Lok Sabha by the veteran late Purno A'gitok Sangma for nine consecutive terms, is considered a political bastion of his family.
Former Lok Sabha speaker PA Sangma's daughter Agatha, too, had represented the Tura seat in the Lok Sabha and had been the junior-most minister in the then Congress-led UPA government, when she was a member of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). After the death of PA Sangma in 2016, his son Conrad K'ongkal Sangma, who is now the national president of National People's Party (NPP), won the Tura Lok Sabha seat, which he vacated last year and went on to win a berth in the state assembly from the Tura assembly constituency to continue as chief minister.
Agatha had vacated the Tura seat last year to enable her brother to seek by-election from the constituency.
Agatha will be the NPP candidate for the prestigious Tura Lok Sabha seat, while the NPP-led ruling Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) has decided to field former legislator Jemino Mawthoh of the United Democratic Party (UDP) as a consensus candidate for the Shillong parliamentary seat.
Meghalaya will vote on April 11 next.