SHILLONG, Sept 7: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Wednesday said the BJP national leadership will definitely communicate to him if they have any concerns.
He was reacting to a recent statement made by the BJP national vice president in-charge Meghalaya Dr Chuba Ao that the party will decide to pull out of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government within a month’s time.
According to Sangma, Dr Ao’s personal statement cannot be taken as the stand of the BJP as a party.
“I am sure if there are concerns, the national leadership of the BJP will definitely communicate and discuss with us,” he told reporters.
“As I said (if there are concerns), there would be unity within the party and they would have the MLAs and other party leaders together raising a voice but we are clearly seeing that when the particular individual (Dr Ao) comes up with a statement there is nobody to support him and most of the party leaders and MLAs says otherwise,” Sangma said.
On the claim of Dr Ao that the enforcement directorate (ED) and central bureau of investigation (CBI) would come after the MDA government for alleged corruption, chief minister however said, “In the past everybody have been working together, if one is going to allege that MDA is involve in all these things I think they are forgetting that they are pointing three fingers at themselves also while they are pointing one finger outside.”
“However, we are very clear on our stand that whatever we have done we have been doing as per procedures as per law and everything has been done in a proper, clean and transparent manner,” he said.
Sangma said Dr Ao’s statement indicated that he has some personal agenda and some personal grudge but “we keep seeing him making a lot of statements that finally do not come out in a positive manner as their own political MLAs and their own party leaders do not agree with that particular stand.”
Further, the chief minister said that the NPP has tried to resolve any differences with the six coalition partners including the BJP.
“We have been running this government and we have had lots of turbulence during four and a half years but we have stuck together and we have always tried to resolve the differences that we had.
There may be concerns that the BJP has and we keep discussing with them and we keep trying to clear up the concerns, the issues and any kind of differences that are there and as a Chairman of the MDA that is my responsibility and I try to ensure that we try to work together as far as possible,” he said.
Sangma said he would leave it to the decision of the individual party on whether to pull out or not from the government.
“We can’t stop them and tell them they have to be here as it is purely their decision but are we saying one should leave, we are not. We have worked with so many coalition partners, we respect them even now, we stick to our coalition dharma, we ensure we give them space, independence, and also we come together for any kind of important decision we make,” he added.
Meanwhile, the chief minister further maintained that the National People’s Party (NPP) never had pre pre-poll alliance with any political party during elections.
“When we formed the government here in 2018, that time we contested separately; we did not have any pre-poll alliance then. We did not have any pre-poll alliance with any political party for that matter of fact. When NPP contested the elections in Manipur in 2017, we never had any pre-poll alliance with any political party neither in Nagaland, neither in Mizoram, neither in Assam, neither in Meghalaya. So we never had a pre-poll alliance with anybody in any elections.”
Stating the pre-poll alliance does not go with the NPP’s beliefs, he said, “The fact (is) that we are here to convince the people to fight elections on our ideologies. Therefore, if we do that we are diluting it by having a pre-poll alliance.”
