CM turns down NPP’s fresh poll demand

NEW DELHI/SHILLONG: Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, while rejecting the NPP’s demand for a fresh poll in the State, has asserted that assembly polls in Meghalaya will be held in 2018.
Speaking to The Shillong Times in Delhi on Monday, Sangma said that the NPP has only two MLAs in the 60-member House.
“NPP should remember that it too had tasted defeat in the by-poll to Chokpot assembly seat held recently,” he said.
The NPP leaders should have patience and wait till that period since the people of the state in 2013 had given us the mandate to rule the state for five years (till 2018 poll), he added.
In the aftermath of victory in Tura by-poll, the NPP has dared the Chief Minister to dissolve the Assembly  to seek fresh mandate.
The state president of NPP WR Kharlukhi, while addressing newsmen in Shillong on Saturday had said,  “Why the Chief Minister has to wait till 2018, he can dissolve the Assembly now and go for fresh elections.”
BJP to decide strategy: The Meghalaya BJP will meet next month to prepare its strategy for the 2018 Assembly elections.  Informing this, the state BJP chief Shibun Lyngdoh said that the meeting will decide whether to form an alliance with like-minded parties or fight the 2018 Assembly elections alone. It may be mentioned that BJP had extended support to  the NPP candidate Conrad Sangma in the recently concluded  Tura by-poll.