SHILLONG: NCP national general secretary, Praful Patel said the National Democratic Alliance should have given an important position to late P.A Sangma in the government since he was the senior most and a former Lok Sabha Speaker from the North East.
“I met him and though he was not dying for a position, he felt let down as being the senior most leader from the North East, he was not given the respect. He was pained,” Patel told reporters here on Tuesday.
He however defended the party’s decision not to support Sangma in the 2012 presidential elections though he was one of the founders of the party.
Responding to queries, Patel recalled that Sangma was not contesting the presidential elections with the approval of NCP and he was contesting the election as an independent individual.
“We are a political party and we take decisions at the working committee level. There was no reason for late PA Sangma to contest the elections that time against the wishes of the NCP’s working committee,” he said.
Patel pointed out that NCP that time was a part of UPA and how can the party put up a candidate against the candidate of UPA. “We have to be practical,” he added.
Late Sangma had unsuccessfully contested the 2012 presidential elections against former President Pranab Mukherjee with the latter polling 69.3 per cent votes with a value of 7,13,763.
Terming Sangma as a dear friend, Patel said it was purely a decision of at the highest level of the party to induct his daughter, Agatha Sangma into the ministry out of sheer respect to him and to the people of the state.
“We made her a minister and she was there till the last day of the falling out and we never asked her to leave even after one and half years of the differences,” he said.
