The
Meghalaya Legislative Assembly
The Meghalaya Legislative Assembly is the unicameral legislature of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Meghalaya.
Constituted as a directly elected body in 1972, it has 60 members, filled through direct elections held e ...
election was held on 27 February 2018 to elect 59 of 60 members to the
Meghalaya Legislative Assembly
The Meghalaya Legislative Assembly is the unicameral legislature of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Meghalaya.
Constituted as a directly elected body in 1972, it has 60 members, filled through direct elections held e ...
, with the results declared on 3 March. The scheduled election in
Williamnagar constituency was delayed to an undetermined date following the death of
Nationalist Congress Party
The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) is one of the nine national parties in India. The party generally supports Indian nationalism and Gandhian secularism. It is the largest opposition party in Maharashtra and is also a significant party in ...
candidate Jonathone Sangma in an
IED blast in
East Garo Hills district
East Garo Hills is an administrative district in the state of Meghalaya in India.
History
The East Garo Hills district was formed in 1976, after the erstwhile Garo Hills district of Meghalaya was re-organised with a view to bring the administrati ...
on 18 February 2018. The incumbent
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
government, led by
Chief Minister
A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...
Mukul Sangma
Mukul Manda Sangma is an Indian politician who was Chief Minister of Meghalaya from 2010 to 2018 and is currently leader of the opposition in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly. He has been a member of the All India Trinamool Congress since Nove ...
, attempted to win re-election for the third consecutive time.
Background
Electoral system
The state of
Meghalaya
Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of As ...
lies in the North-eastern region of India, predominantly populated by tribal groups. At the time of accession to the Independent India, these tribes were assured autonomy to make laws in and enforce local customs, management of land and forests. The sixth schedule of the
Constitution of India
The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...
provides for the establishment of autonomous
District Councils to oversee these issues. As such, the powers of the state government are limited when compared with other states of India.
The
Meghalaya Legislative Assembly
The Meghalaya Legislative Assembly is the unicameral legislature of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Meghalaya.
Constituted as a directly elected body in 1972, it has 60 members, filled through direct elections held e ...
is the legislative organ of the state. The legislature has 60 seats chosen through
first-past-the-post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...
method. The party or coalition with more than 30 seats can form the executive.
From 1976, no political party has secured an absolute majority in the state assembly, with
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
forming coalition governments.
Poll machinery
The tenure of outgoing Legislative Assembly, elected in March 2013, was set to end on 6 March 2018. A total of 370 candidates contested the polls across the 60 constituencies. Out of these, only 32 were female candidates, despite the state's distinction of being a
matrilineal society.
There were 17.68
lakh
A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...
voters in the state, out of which 8.93 lakh voters were female.
The number of first time voters in the state was 45%.
The election commission set up 3,082
polling booths
A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English and British English, although polling place is the building in the state, out of which 60 booths will be pink booths - one in each constituency run completely by women.
There were 172 polling stations in areas adjoining the 884-km-long
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
-Meghalaya border, with polling officials having to pass through Assam to reach several booths. The home department identified 633 polling stations as vulnerable, 315 as critical and 75 as both vulnerable and critical.
Counting will take place in 13 stations to be set up across the state.
Schedule
The Election Commission scheduled the election for 27 February 2018 with the results to be announced on 3 March 2018.
Candidates
297 candidates registered to contest the election.
Issues
Coal mining in Jaintia Hills
The
Jaintia Hills
The Khasi and Jaintia Hills are a mountainous region that was mainly part of Assam and Meghalaya. This area is now part of the present Indian constitutive state of Meghalaya (formerly part of Assam), which includes the present districts of Eas ...
in the eastern part of the state have rich deposits of coal. The
National Green Tribunal
The National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 is an Act of the Parliament of India which enables the creation of a special tribunal to handle the expeditious disposal of the cases pertaining to environmental issues. It draws inspiration from India's ...
banned rat-hole mining of coal in the state in 2014. Tribal groups across Meghalaya maintain that according to the sixth schedule of the Indian Constitution, they alone have the right to the coal under the hills. But th
Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1973 which vests ownership and control of the mineral with the Indian state, expressly lists Meghalaya’s coal mines as being under its purview. Besides, the Sixth Schedule also confers the right over underground minerals to the Indian state. It explicitly mentions the need for "licences or leases for the purpose of prospecting for, or extraction of, minerals". According to the Constitution, there is only one way a Sixth Schedule state can be exempted from the coal nationalisation law – by a presidential notification to that effect. Official records suggest that while the state government did express apprehension in the wake of the nationalisation of coal, it never applied for an exemption.
The state, in general turned a blind eye to the small-scale mining of coal, which had a huge impact on the ecology of the region, leading to the ban. However, numerous miners and workers were affected by the sudden decision and blame the incumbent Congress government for the failure. The
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
has promised to resolve the issue in eight months of coming to power, while the Congress government has assigned the mines to Meghalaya Mineral Development Corporation to operate the mines on behalf of the miners.
Exit polls
Results
The elections resulted in a
hung assembly
A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisla ...
with no single party or alliance getting the requisite majority of 31 seats in the
Vidhan Sabha
The State Legislative Assembly, or Vidhan Sabha, or also Saasana Sabha, is a legislative body in the states and union territories of India. In the 28 states and 3 union territories with a unicameral state legislature, it is the sole legislati ...
. Conrad Sangma, leader of the NPP, announced that he would form a government with the support of the UDP, BJP and other regional parties. He was sworn in as the Chief Minister, along with eleven other ministers.
Elected members
The following is the list of the members elected in the Meghalaya assembly:
See also
*
Elections in India
India has a parliamentary system as defined by its constitution, with power distributed between the central government and the states.
The President of India is the ceremonial head of state of the country and supreme commander-in-chief for a ...
*
2018 elections in India
References
External links
Election Commission of India
{{Meghalaya elections
Meghalaya
Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of As ...
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...
10th Meghalaya Legislative Assembly