NPP to go solo in Meghalaya polls: CM Conrad Sangma

India

oi-Prakash KL

New Delhi, Aug 27: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Saturday announced the decision of going solo in the next assembly elections. It will not have an alliance with any party including the BJP, while being part of the NDA alliance at the Centre, he said.

“We are not going to contest next assembly elections in alliance with anyone, including the BJP,” PTI quoted Sangma, who is the president of the NPP, as saying. He added 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.

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.