What will Conrad Sangma's NPP do if kept out of Manipur government?

While Manipur's Bharatiya Janata Party leadership has flown to Delhi to lay rival claims to the post of chief minister of the north-eastern state, National People’s Party leader Conrad K Sangma, who had earlier flown to Imphal to seek a place for his party in the new government, seems miffed by hints that the BJP will go ahead and form a single-party government.

Sangma said he would ”examine” the situation if his party is not invited to join the government.

While the BJP won a simple majority in the house by winning 32 of 60 seats in the assembly, results to which were announced last week, the NPP too did creditably by winning seven seats.

”Even in the region, the NPP as a national party is part of the North Eastern Democratic Alliance. If the BJP does invite us in government formation in Manipur, we will be happy. If the situation is that we are not part of the government there, we will examine the matter,” Conrad Sangma told a group of journalists in Imphal.

The NPP had not entered into a pre-poll agreement with the BJP despite being part of the NDA and having the BJP as an ally in the Meghalaya government. BJP leader N Biren Singh has already indicated he did not favour taking NPP into the BJP-led government, though the Naga People's Front is likely to find a place in the new government.

”In case of Manipur, BJP has the majority. The decision will be theirs. If they invite, we will definitely join,” the Meghalaya chief minister said.

Manipur's caretaker Chief Minister N Biren Singh as well as former works minister Th Biswajit Singh, who is being seen by many as a potential candidate for the chief ministerial chair, had flown to Delhi for consultations with the BJP's top leadership on Tuesday.

BJP state unit chief A Sharda Devi too is in Delhi ahead of the formation of the new government in the state.

The party's central observers and co-observers, Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju, are expected to fly down to Imphal to oversee the election of the chief minister after discussions with the central leadership.