TURA, Feb 16: If there is one thing political parties need to woo the masses, then it is to have their eyes on sight and ears to the ground. So election campaigns are a time for rivals to take pot shots at their opponents.

This is what was similarly tried by Abhishek Banerjee at the TMC rally in Tura on Wednesday when he attacked the NPP and Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma and predicted that Sangma would lose his seat in South Tura.

What gave him that optimism was what his workers had updated him on the “under-development” of Tura town, the oldest and largest constituency of the entire Garo Hills region.

If only a closer look was made.

The TMC national general secretary said South Tura constituency was “lacking” in development and people had not been provided with electricity.

“When Conrad sangma cannot provide electricity to his own constituency, how can he even generate power for the state?” asked Abhishek.

He failed to see the light up of Tura under the Tura Beautification project and even during his procession from Hawakhana to Tura bazaar for the public meeting was oblivious to the towering steel poles straddling LED lights to illuminate the ground below all through the town.

Clearly, none had even brought it to the notice of Abhishek Banerjee that Garo Hills had, less than a month ago, inaugurated its first ever hydel project over river Ganol to supply additional power to Tura town and its adjoining areas.

Tura is plagued with a drinking water crisis and no over-all development is visible, so says the TMC leader.

But the NPP terms this statement as “misleading” and cites the development works undertaken under the CM’s constituency.

“They did not even notice that we have undertaken a massive augmentation of the Tura water supply scheme in which localities that previously had yearlong water scarcity are now having two flows in a day after the chief minister directed construction of water tanks in each affected localities and installed new pipe connections. All these were done under the augmentation project,” stated an NPP leader from Tura who appeared amused by the attacks.

“When they talk of under-development they probably don’t term as development the projects of Tura such as the P A Sangma sports complex, the renovated state of the art district auditorium, the first artificial football turf at Chandmari, nor the expansion of roads and construction of new ones in localities,” said the NPP leader.

Abhishek accused the NPP government of being a puppet to its masters in Delhi and Guwahati- in this case the BJP.

He blames the BJP for the demonetization of currencies and the GST which damaged the economy and says the NPP and BJP are running a double engine government, even though Demonetization and GST were decisions taken by the central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.