Meghalaya elections: CM Sangma hints at alliance with BJP
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Shillong: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma today gave a hint that his party may bring back the alliance with the BJP. But, if the exit polls prove to be right, the NPP won’t make a majority even with the BJP alliance.
His National People's Party (NPP) is also likely to be the single largest party in the assembly polls concluded today. Four exit polls hinted that the NPP may win 20 out of 60 seats in the Meghalaya assembly. The party needs 31 seats to make a majority. The BJP only won two seats in 2018 but today's exit polls hinted at six seats. Congress is also likely to win six seats. However, the new entrant Trinamool Congress may win 11 seats.
"If we get a fraction of the mandate, then we have to talk to parties to form a government... If a party can give voice to the northeast at the national level, we are working towards it," said Sangma.
"After I took over the NPP after my father's death I made it clear When we go to election, we should fight on our ideology. We have contested on ideology, not on pre-poll alliances. We have to realise that elections are different from government formation. The northeast gets divided amongst themselves and the numbers don't give us enough voice at the national level," he added.
In 2017, the BJP entered a chain of alliance in the local northeast parties with NEDA or the North East Democratic Alliance as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Act East" policy. This gave the BJP political allies in all seven states. This gave the party a second term in Assam. In 2018, even with two seats, BJP and NPP formed a government together. However, NPP and BJP contested separately this time.