Man who brought N-E region on political map

Sept 1, 1947 - March 4, 2016

Purno Agitok Sangma, the man with the ever present smile and an easy going manner, was among the few successful names from the North-East to make their mark in national politics. Emerging from a non-descript village in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya 69 years ago, the Congress identified him as an emerging youth leader and sent him to Parliament when he was just 30.

Sangma’s relaxed demeanour and make-no-enemies approach to politics saw him filling the North-East tribal quota as a junior minister in the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi governments. His big break came with his appointment as Information and Broadcasting Minister in the Narasimha Rao government’s closing years.

Sangma was now poised for his biggest career break in politics. After the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress was not in a position to form the government but could dictate who would be the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Narashima Rao, as the leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha and the party president, had a brilliant thought: why not Sangma?

This was the most potent gesture “New Delhi” could make towards the entire North-East. The fifth highest honour in the land went to the 49-year-old man from the region.

Sangma always thought of himself as North-East’s man in New Delhi and New Delhi’s man in North-East. With him presiding over the Lok Sabha, the tableau of inclusive democracy was complete. He was the first Scheduled Tribe member, North-East representative and Christian to be elected Lok Sabha Speaker. As Speaker, Sangma understood the political plays at work at the national level and was deemed a fair.

A man too intelligent and too proud to shut up, he was forced at times to plough a tangential furrow. Sangma was the third leg of troika with Sharad Pawar and Tariq Anwar to walk out of the Congress Working Committee on the question of Sonia Gandhi’s nationality. He then split with them, won an election entirely on his own charisma but on the Trinamool Congress ticket.

Sangma made up with the duo and also patched up with Congress president Sonia Gandhi but succumbed to the temptation of advancing the political career of his children. His daughter became India’s youngest Cabinet Minister. More contradictions emerged subsequently. On sensing that the political wind was not in Congress’ favour, Sangma spoke against the practice of picking a Rajya Sabha member to lead the country. This enabled him to get picked as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate in the Presidential elections against Pranab Mukherjee. At the same time, he acquiesced in the appointment of his unelected son as the head of the Garo Hills Development Council.

The narrow cultural focus of the BJP proved too much for the self-confessed beef lover. His last public appearance of note was, besides Rahul Gandhi, in Hyderabad to protest against Rohith Vemula’s suicide. For a man whose first name Purno means ‘complete’, Sangma would have felt his journey in politics incomplete. “Even after spending 35 years in Parliament, Members still can’t distinguish between me and other MPs from the North-East,” he had recently complained.