The ruling National People’s Party (NPP) emerged victorious in the election to the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Meghalaya on Friday with its candidate and party state president W.R. Kharlukhi defeating the Opposition Congress’s nominee Kennedy C. Khyriem.

Kharlukhi bagged 39 votes against Khyriem’s 19. The outcome of the election was a foregone conclusion due to the numerical strength of the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance.

One vote in favour of Kharlukhi was declared invalid while the lone Khun Hynñiewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) legislator Adelbert Nongrum abstained from voting.

In the 60-member Assembly, the alliance has 41 legislators, including the Speaker, while the Opposition Congress has 19 legislators.

It was for the first time in his political career, which began in 1986, that Kharlukhi fought in an election. He emerged as the consensus candidate of the ruling alliance in March. The election was deferred due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking to reporters after being declared the winner, he said that his priority would be to serve the people of the state.

On the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, for which the NPP faced flak after its lone Lok Sabha MP Agatha K. Sangma voted in its favour last year, Kharlukhi said he would follow up on the resolution passed by the Assembly in March demanding that the Centre exempt the state from the purview of the controversial law.

“As a representative of the state, I will have to follow up the resolution in Delhi,” he said while thanking chief minister Conrad K. Sangma and all those legislators who supported him.

“Congratulations Dr. W. R. Kharlukhi for being elected to the Rajya Sabha from Meghalaya. I thank all the MDA partners for bestowing their support to the National People’s Party,” Conrad later tweeted.

Kharlukhi, who has served as the NPP state president since 2012, will succeed two-time Congress MP Wansuk Syiem.

The 63-year-old retired associate professor was also a former president of the Jaiñtia Students’ Union, and was one of the architects in the formation of the Meghalaya Students’ Union. He was also a leading member of the North East Region Students’ Union formed in 1981.

In 1986, he entered electoral politics by joining the then Hill People’s Union and served as a general secretary of the party’s youth wing.

Born and brought up in Jowai, West Jaiñtia Hills, Kharlukhi has a master of philosophy degree in history, but a doctorate in philosophy in political science. He was also a close associate of former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno Agitok Sangma.

When Sangma was with the Nationalist Congress Party, Kharlukhi had served as the state president of the party from 2007-2012.