SHILLONG, MAR 6: Only eleven legislators who won the recently held Meghalaya legislative assembly election were elected not only manage to get the highest number of votes but they also garnered the highest percentage of votes, the remaining fifty one legislators may have won because of the number of votes they polled but percentage wise they polled much less.
Of the eleven legislators who got more than 50 percent of the vote’s shares, nine are from the Congress and two from the United Democratic Party (UDP).
Of the eleven legislators who polled the highest number of votes and got maximum percentage forty-eight year old Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma heads the list. Even his wife Dikkanchi D Shira has made it to the top eleven.
In fact fourteen of the legislators who have been elected in fact got less than 30 percent of votes even if they polled more votes than their opponents. Which means that the other 70 percent share of the votes were divided among the winning candidate opponents, had there been a straight fight then the result would have been different.
Two legislators AT Mondal and Noverfield R Marak actually got only 23 percent of the total votes in their constituency but as the votes were divided among their opponents they manage to win because of the number of votes they got. Congress legislator Mondal who contest from Phulbari got 4831 votes but his share is only 23 percent of the total vote polled and Independent legislator Marak who contested from North Tura got 4713 votes and only 23 percentage of the total votes polled.
Chief minister Mukul Sangma not only won by a huge margin as he polled a total of 15,031 votes but he also got sixty-nine percentage of total votes polled in the Ampati constituency. The total votes cast in Ampati were 21,890.
Sangma polled more votes even if the votes of both of his opponents NNP candidate Clement G Momin and Independent candidate Mahiran Hajong are combined together. Momin polled 5935 and Hajong manage to get only 924 votes.
Following close on Sangma’s heel are East Shillong Congress candidate Ampareen Lyngdoh who got a total votes of 10, 103 and her share of percentage was 63 percent, Nartiang Congress candidate candidate Sngewbalang Dhar got 18,392 votes and his share of votes was 65 percent.
Former chief minister and Nongpoh Congress candidate DD Lapang got 10, 927 votes and 51 percentage share of the total votes polled , Pynthorumkhrah Congress candidate AL Hek polled 10,588 votes and got 52 percent share of the total votes. Former chief minister Salseng C Marak polled a total of 9070 votes and got 51 percent of the total votes share.
Sohiong Congress candidate HDR Lyngdoh got 12,353 votes and his total vote share is 57 percent, chief minister’s wife and Congress Mahenderganj candidate Dikkanchi D Shira polled 11, 506 votes and her total vote share is 50.16 percent and the Meghalaya richest candidate from the Congress Naitlang Dhar who contest the Umroi seat polled 9485 votes and his vote share is 51 percent.
Only two UDP legislators Metbah Lyngdoh and Paul Lyngdoh have polled more votes and percentage also. While Metbah Lyngdoh who contested from Mairang got 13, 726 votes and 53 percentage of the total votes, Paul Lyngdoh who won from West Shillong constituency polled 9,333 votes and got 51 percent of the total votes cast in his constituency.
Following is the comparative table of total votes polled by the winning candidates and his/her share of the percentage of votes in their respective constituency: – (Analysis by Sandeep Rana with input from ECI data)
funny how elections are held in our country. 49 elected representatives out of 60 were actually chosen by a small section of the total electorate!! where is the voice of the majority in that? is it really democratic? in other parts of the world, particularly in developed countries, in order to ensure that the elected representatives are actually chosen by the majority, runoff voting or 2nd polling is held amongst the top two contenders so that the real winner is chosen by the majority. we in india are way behind the democratic world !! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system