SHILLONG, OCT 6: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Tuesday dismissed two major rumours doing the rounds – that the NPP will remove the BJP from the MDA to go solo, and that the BJP is attempting to break the NPP to form its own government in Meghalaya.
“Both these rumours are completely and absolutely incorrect,” Sangma asserted.
The chief minister said the NPP has 33 MLAs on its own – an absolute majority – and could have dropped its partners during the last reshuffle if it wanted to.
“The NPP had got absolute majority with 33 MLAs and if so desired it would have dropped its coalition partners during the last cabinet reshuffle. But as a coalition and even as a political party we are very clear on the principles that we have built this coalition and one of those principles is to ensure we work together,” he said.
He said the MDA believes in carrying its partners in good times and bad times.
“The numbers may change here and there, the participation in the cabinet may decrease up and down, but the spirit of working together and not just leaving our coalition partners simply because we have adequate numbers – that is not part of the way we deal with politics,” he said.
Sangma said all coalition partners have recommitted to the alliance.
“I have been speaking to the leadership of all coalition partners and from the coalition politics point of view they have all agreed and recommitted themselves to the coalition. But yes, they have expressed internal issues which led to the movement of some MLAs from one coalition partner to the other,” he said.
On whether the government will effect a cabinet reshuffle to accommodate the 8 MLAs who recently joined the BJP, Sangma said there have been no such talks.
“There has been no discussion on this line and there is no particular intention to induct any minister from the MLAs who had recently joined the BJP. There was no talks from the beginning also and there has been no discussion in between also and even after they joined there has been no discussion on this point,” he clarified.
He also said the shift of 8 UDP MLAs to the BJP should not be seen as distress in coalition politics.
“Absolutely not. If the respected MLAs had moved to any of the political parties outside the coalition and joined the opposition parties then yes one could speculate that there is some kind of mistrust or some problems in the coalition. But the movement has taken place from a partner in the coalition to another partner in the coalition. Therefore the question of mistrust does not arise,” he said.
Sangma maintained that from the coalition and governance point of view, there is absolutely no impact, though dynamics in individual constituencies may change.
