NPP not keen to have pre-poll alliance ahead of LS polls

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaMarch 13, 2019

SHILLONG: The National People’s Party (NPP), which is an ally of the NDA-led government at the Centre, today reiterated its decision to go solo in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls even as it expressed confidence to win the Tura seat.

“We are confident that we will win the seat no matter who the candidate is as the people have complete faith in the party and the leadership,” NPP national president and chief minister Conrad K Sangma told reporters here on Wednesday.

When sought for his comment on the Congress decision to field former chief minister Mukul Sangma from the Tura seat, Conrad said, “It is their internal decision but we are confident that we will come out victorious in this election as party workers has been working very hard in the past few months much before the elections were announced.”

Asked on the outcome of the meeting held with BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav yesterday, he said the meeting attended by chief ministers from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya have discussed about how to move head in the upcoming elections.

“However, the NPP has been very clear in its stand that we are the party that has its own identity. We have our own ideology and therefore we will fight the election on our own terms and therefore in the state whatever we feel we will go ahead and if we feel that we should put up candidates we will be putting up candidates. There will be no pre poll alliance,” Conrad said.

Referring to the resolution of the party to field candidates in all the 25 seats in the North East region, he said, “We are sticking to it and we are working towards it. It’s not practically possible for us to immediately expect us to put up people everywhere but wherever we get a positive response and wherever we are able to organise the party in a short period of time we will try to put up candidates as far as possible.”

On the BJP’s decision to bring back the contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill if voted to power, the NPP national chief said the party has been very clear from day one that this bill if it is passed, it will sever ties with the BJP and the NDA.

“However that did not happen. Most probably it was the discussion that took place between the NDA, the partners and the BJP and all the rest of the partners not just us that it let to the situation where the BJP considered and did not bring forward the Bill,” he said.