The NCP has won 19 of the total 29 seats of the GHADC, an absolute majority against the Congress’s five. Given that non-tribal candidates are not welcome in these elections, the NCP may be justified in seeing its triumph in terms of having established “a stronghold” in the Garo Hills. It has added that this will lead to a victory in the Lok Sabha elections. Leaving long projections aside, talking about strongholds is also to risk certain paradoxes. While the NCP will form the executive committee in the GHADC, and the MPA partners will form the one for the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council, the Congress will be forming the executive committee for the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council.
The NCP’s delight is understandable, since in the assembly elections, the Congress was the single largest party. That it did not get to govern had more to do with its sins in past governments, and its consequent failure to get partners, than its waning presence. If that failure was especially striking because the United Progressive Alliance was at the Centre, then the NCP’s and the MPA’s victories in the district councils are proportionately less remarkable because they run the state. If the district council elections are to be taken as pointers to bigger things, as many do, then the message seems to be that the tussle is fairly evenly balanced. The regional parties in the MPA are likely to shine brighter close to the base. Then the MPA itself, inevitably, houses a few contradictions. One such is the inclusion in it of both the NCP and the Bharatiya Janata Party, whereas the NCP supports the UPA at the Centre. But whatever the MPA’s problems, it is clear that the Congress will have to do much in Meghalaya to get back its old place. The district council elections have at least made that clear.
