SHILLONG: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Thursday ruled out dropping BJP from the ruling MDA saying the two MLAs of the party, instead, deserve respect for their stand against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.
“The matter is closed,” he said while also asserting there has been no demand from the United Democratic Party (UDP), a key constituent of the alliance, to show BJP the door and that only a few individuals had raised the issue. ) Earlier, UDP vice president Allantry Dkhar had claimed that his party and other partners of the MDA were not comfortable working with the BJP ever since CAB rocked the Northeastern states and hence should be dropped from the alliance.
The two BJP MLAs in the MDA are Sanbor Shullai and A L Hek, who is also a Cabinet minister.
Talking to newsmen here, Sangma said the NPP was clear that it would break its ties with the NDA at the Centre if the Union government had gone ahead with CAB, but it was finally not passed.
“We should also respect the two BJP MLAs for having supported our resolution against the CAB,” he said while adding that the chapter is closed and there is no more need to discuss it.
Responding to a query about UDP leaders being uncomfortable with the BJP, he said that the matter would be discussed and all issues would be sorted out.
CEC to take call on seats
The chief minister, who is also the NPP national president, said that the party’s CEC will take a final call on how many Lok Sabha seats the party would contest in the North East.
He said that the party had recently adopted a resolution which said it should contest all the 25 seats and the party is working on that line.
He, however, said that the party will look at different applications and opportunities in different constituencies before finalising the list of candidates.
