Two Meghalaya MPs take oath in Parliament

Shillong: The two newly elected and first time members of Parliament from Meghalaya, Saleng A Sangma of Congress and Ricky Andrew J Syngkon of Voice of the People Party (VPP), took oath as members of the 18th Lok Sabha on Tuesday with pro-tem speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab in the chair.
While Saleng upheld a copy of the Constitution in his hand, exhorting, “Uphold the Constitution” after taking oath, Ricky greeted the house in the indigenous Khasi and Garo languages, saying, “Khublei and Mithela”.
In a drastic change in the political equation in the hill state, the ruling National People’s Party (NPP), which is a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), could neither retain the Tura Lok Sabha seat that it had held, nor win the Shillong Lok Sabha seat for which it had contested.
Meghalaya had unseated both its sitting Lok Sabha members by overwhelmingly voting for change in the both the constituencies.
While Ricky Andrew J Syngkon of the newly floated VPP trounced three times MP Vincent Pala of the Congress in the Shillong parliamentary constituency, Saleng Sangma of Congress ousted Agatha Sangma of the NPP, who too was seeking re-election for the fourth consecutive term from the Tura parliamentary seat.
Saleng Sangma, who was a three-time member of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, representing the Gambegre assembly constituency, had recently resigned as MLA following his election to the parliament.
Both the Lok Sabha members, representing Meghalaya would seat in the opposition, though the state is ruled by a constituent of the ruling NDA at the Centre.