Meghalaya polls: NPP will not form alliance with any party, says CM Conrad Sangma

New Delhi, Aug. 27 (PTI): Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Saturday said the NPP will not forge an alliance with any party, including the BJP, for the upcoming assembly elections in the state.

However, the National People’s Party (NPP) will continue to remain in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre, Sangma said, adding that the two parties are ideologically not on the same page on various issues.

Elections in Meghalaya are likely to be held early next year.

“We are not going to contest next assembly elections in alliance with anyone, including the BJP,” Sangma, who is the president of the NPP, told reporters here after the party’s national conference.

Sangma said the NPP has never had any pre-poll alliance with any party in any state, and underlined that the party would also contest the upcoming assembly polls in Odisha and Chhattisgarh on its own.

However, he also maintained that NPP will remain focussed on the state election in Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.

The NPP had fought the 2018 assembly polls in Meghalaya alone. However, the party, which came second to Congress, entered into an alliance with the BJP to form government in the state.

With two legislators, the BJP is a minor ally in the NPP-led government in Meghalaya since 2018.

Sangma also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP for the election of Draupadi Murmu, a tribal, as the president of India.