| Sinking
Sangma may clutch at BJP straw
Nitin A Gokhale
Guwahati
 From
a high profile Lok Sabha Speaker to a Sonia-baiter to a nowhere man. Purno
Agitok Sangma, the big little man from Meghalaya has made a long downward
journey in the past half-a-decade.
Having lost the ‘clock’ symbol to the Sharad Pawar faction
of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Sangma is now frantically searching
for an appropriate symbol to fight the Lok Sabha elections from his traditional
Tura seat.
For a man who had once been touted as the tallest leader from the Northeast,
Sangma has been reduced to explore the option of joining the BJP just
to fight the Lok Sabha elections. Although his supporters have put up
a brave front, great confusion prevails within the ranks of the Assam
NCP unit. A senior leader of the state unit says: “Sangma is under
such tremendous pressure that he might end up fighting the forthcoming
elections under the BJP symbol.” However, Sangma loyalist and general
secretary of the party BB Dutta ruled out any such possibility.
Sangma’s supporters in the Garo Hills have also reacted strongly
to the commission’s decision of denying him the NCP’s name
and symbol. A meeting at Tura is being planned to hail Sangma as “a
leader of the masses.” Senior party legislators like TD Shira, Masonsing
Sangma, Loverson Momin, Adolf Lu Hitler Marak as well as the leader of
the Opposition in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, K Sangma, will attend
the meeting.
But that Sangma has reconciled to losing the battle to the Pawar camp
is evident in his application to the Election Commission to allot the
“budding rose” symbol to his faction of the NCP. In a letter
to Chief Election Commissioner TS Krishnamurthy, party general secretary
Veena Nayyar pointed out that the poll panel was “silent”
on the political status of the party led by Sangma at a time when the
election process had already begun. This has happened despite the commission
recognising the fact that the party, led by the former Lok Sabha Speaker,
has the support of two MPs, eight MLAs and several working committee members.
“Therefore, we submit that we may be allowed to be named the People’s
Nationalist Party and allotted the election symbol of the budding rose,”
Nayyar said in the letter.
Sangma now finds himself in a corner, with perhaps the only alternative
for immediate political survival being to join the BJP.
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