SHILLONG, MAR 15: The National People’s Party (NPP) has decided to field former Member of Parliament Agatha K Sangma to retain the Tura seat and a former MCS officer Ferlene CA Sangma for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and Selsella bye election, which are slated to be held on April 11.
The party has also named former minister and state president of Manipur, Thangminlien Kipgen for Outer Manipur seat in the first list of candidates for the MP elections approved by the Central Election Committee (CEC) on Friday.
“The CEC of the NPP which met today received applications from Tura and Outer Manipur seats…and decided to declare the names of two candidates – former union minister Agatha K Sangma and former Manipur minister T Kipkin.,” NPP national president and chief minister Conrad K Sangma said in a video statement.
Agatha was also a former MLA of South Tura, after she decided to resign from the seat to pave way for her brother to continue as chief minister of Meghalaya.
The Tura seat was lying vacant for the past five months following the resignation of Conrad as Tura MP after having won the South Tura bye-election, last year.
It may be mentioned here that the Tura seat was represented by their late father Purno Agitok Sangma, who was also the founder leader of the NPP, for nine times.
Conrad also informed that the party has also decided to field Ferlene CA Sangma, a former bereaucrat for the bye-election to the Selsella Assembly seat.
Stating that the party is expecting more applications to come in, the NPP national chief said the NPP will be announcing the second list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections within a day or two.
Although the NPP had recently adopted a resolution to contest from all 25 seats in the North East region, the party however has decided to support the common candidate of the ruling Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) from Shillong parliamentary seat.
Meanwhile, Agatha is pitched against Congress nominee, Leader of Opposition and former chief minister Mukul Sangma for the seat.
However, Conrad had maintained that the Congress is not a threat to the party and expressed confidence that it would win the Tura seat by a huge margin.
“Our party organisation is very upbeat and I am sure that in this coming election NPP will come out victorious with a very big margin in the Tura Seat,” the NPP national president had stated.
“As a government we have been working very hard and I think the people have seen the kind of work we are doing and more importantly they are looking forward to what is coming forward. So they want to support us and we are getting tremendous support from the grass root level,” he added.
By Our Reporter
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