Williamnagar: Congress working president and former minister, Deborah Marak, today proposed a united front of all opposition parties to challenge the National People’s Party’s (NPP) potential candidate, Agatha K Sangma, in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections for the Tura seat in 2024.
Deborah Marak, previously interested in contesting, now awaits the party High command’s decision. Two Congress names circulate, but it’s too early for any official candidate announcement, not just for Congress, but for all parties involved.
Speaking from her residence in Williamnagar, Marak stated that a District Congress Committee (DCC) meeting had been organised on Tuesday in Tura to review the recent MLA election and what ailed the Congress.
“It was a fruitful meeting which had most Congress candidates, along with district party leaders and workers from the five districts. We discussed what happened in the recent election and the way forward. The Congress is a national party and will bounce back from any debacle. In politics, there are always setbacks, but we need to come back stronger from it and are confident that that will happen in the future,” said Marak.
She further added that similar meetings would be undertaken in all other districts in Garo Hills, with suggestions for improvement as well as the functioning of the party provided to the MPCC and the AICC to seek their thoughts.
While there has been speculation on the future course of action of the former CM, Dr. Mukul Sangma, and whether he may look forward to rejoining the party, Marak stated that the doors were always open for anyone to join the party, without exception. She, however, clarified that news of her being willing to mediate to bring Mukul back into Congress was untrue.
“Media has misquoted me as I have never claimed that I wanted to mediate in the case. However, if the party high command asks, as a party member and leader, I will definitely be willing to try,” she asserted.
Talking about the poor performance of the Congress in the state, with only five MLAs winning, Marak felt there were multiple reasons why the party could not make an impact.
“You have to understand that the Congress was divided merely a few months prior to the election, which made it hard as we got busy in rebuilding the party. We also lost a lot of very important members to other parties in the run-up to the election, which set us back even further. Vote division between us and the TMC hurt us badly. These were among the main reasons why we performed so poorly,” she added.
On the question of what would be the best way forward to defeat the sitting MP in the upcoming MP elections, the former Williamnagar MLA felt that there was a need for a consensus candidate to ensure they had an advantage.
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“Let us see. We have already been working in other states under the banner of INDIA, so if an agreement can be reached, we will have an advantage. Divided, we may just serve the seat on a platter to the NPP. We have to work things out,” said Deborah Marak.
She also pointed to the fact that in most constituencies in the state, the combined votes of the TMC and Congress would have won them seats, as well as ensuring that many senior leaders who are currently MLAs in the NPP camp would not have deserted the party had there been no division.
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