Meghalaya has reposed its faith in two MPs of the dissolved Parliament with both, Purno Sangma, the All-India Trinamool Congress leader, and Congress nominee P R Kyndiah retaining Tura and Shillong constituencies respectively.
Sangma, who contested from his home constituency - Tura - for the eighth time in a row, defeated his Congress rival Mukul Sangma in a straight fight by a margin of 72,763 votes.
The former Lok Sabha speaker, who sought re-election this time on the All India Trinamool Congress ticket after losing his Nationalist Congress Party symbol to the Sharad Pawar group, polled 1,91,938 votes against Mukul Sangma's 1,19,175 votes.
This time, the margin of Sangma's victory was reduced from the 1999 elections when he had won the five-pronged electoral battle by a margin of over 113,000 votes against his nearest Congress rival, Atul C Marak.
In Shillong, Kyndiah, a Congress ideologue and former Mizoram Governor, made a hat-trick by defeating his nearest independent rival, S Loniak Marbaniang, supported by a four-party alliance, by a margin of 70,896 votes.
BJP's Sanbor Swell Lyngdoh, came third.
While Kyndiah polled 1,90,058 votes, Marbaniang got 1,19,162 votes. Lyngdoh got 58,560.
Kyndiah, who had won the 1999 elections by a margin of over 37,000 votes, almost doubled his margin this time in a three-corner battle.
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