SHILLONG, June 7: After raising hue and cry over the issue of corruption and getting severely censured by the National People’s Party on more than one occasion, the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to swallow the “bitter pill of humiliation” and stick with the MDA government.
Confirming this, BJP’s Meghalaya in-charge, M Chuba Ao said, “We are not withdrawing the support right now but we have to rectify the anomalies.”
He did not elaborate on the anomalies that need to be rectified but said that matters pertaining to alleged anomalies in the government should be sorted out.
Justifying his party’s decision to stick with the ruling alliance, Ao said partners of the coalition have an added responsibility of correcting one another.
He admitted that the BJP central leadership usually approves any decision taken by the party at the state level.
Asked what will happen to the BJP’s overused narration of “zero tolerance towards corruption”, Ao said all political parties have to be responsible and accountable to the public and all the partners – whether the BJP, UDP, NPP, HSPDP or PDF – have to push for course correction if anything goes wrong within the alliance or the government.
He asserted that political parties do not want corruption but people usually blame them and added that the aspect of the administrative setup also needs to be crosschecked.
It may be mentioned that the BJP executive committee had held a meeting last month to discuss the matter pertaining to withdrawal of support to the NPP-led MDA government and some members wanted the party to pull out citing various instances of corruption, especially those involving implementation of central schemes.
The shoddy construction of Assembly building, ISBT and Mawlai bypass had also annoyed the BJP and the two sitting MLAs of the party AL Hek and Sanbor Shullai had left it to the party’s central leadership to take the final call on whether BJP should withdraw their support or not.
Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma time and again has made it clear that it is the prerogative of the BJP to take a call on the matter. NPP state president, WR Kharlukhi had recently called the BJP a ‘paper tiger’ and had even dared the party to withdraw from the MDA.