After a particularly challenging five years, it is an important election for Meghalaya Chief Minister and National People’s Party (NPP) supremo Conrad K Sangma as the state heads to polls on February 27. At his residence in Tura in the state’s Garo Hills, Sangma talks to The Indian Express about his party’s performance in the last five years, the challenge the Trinamool Congress (TMC) poses, and the frosty relationship with the BJP, which was part of the NPP-led alliance but is contesting the polls on its own.
In a democracy, everybody has their voice. But it is the voice of the majority that counts. Critics have the right to say what they are saying. But they are not the voice of the majority. We don’t claim to have resolved everything but there is a sense of satisfaction in our minds and even the public’s minds. Meghalaya was one of the worst performing states in the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana when we took over. Today, in a matter of five years , we are one of the best-performing states. In the last 15 years, about 700 km of roads were made, while in the last five years we made 2,000 km of roads. Fifty per cent of our children were not immunised, but in three to four years we are in the second … third … rank. If that is anti-incumbency, I don’t know what is the definition of anti-incumbency.
Do you consider the TMC a threat?
Every opponent is a worthy opponent. I don’t take anyone lightly, whether it is the BJP or the TMC or any of the smaller parties. Having said that, the TMC has emerged from the Congress. The Congress has got divided into half. From TMC again, four to five MLAs have left. Now they are left with a handful of MLAs. If you compare it to the Congress in 2018, the TMC is much weaker now. The Congress was a strong, united opposition, and now because of the political circumstances, they (the Opposition) are divided.
But Dr Mukul Sangma is very popular…
Dr Mukul has been in politics for a very long time and he is a senior leader … There is no doubt about that. People have seen all the work that he could do, or more importantly, the work he could not do. In 2018 – even if they (Congress) got 21 seats — they were not able to cobble up a coalition because people were not accepting the leadership of Dr Mukul. Today, to expect that they will be able to do better than what they did last time is raising the expectation too high. When it comes to elections, it is not going to be that simple.
The TMC recently alleged that you made racial remarks and called them a “Bengali party”.
During the West Bengal elections, Madam Mamata Banerjee, who I have a great deal of respect for, said that the BJP was an ‘outsider’ party. I was referring to that speech. If we were to use the same analogy for Meghalaya,if the BJP was an ‘outsider’ party for West Bengal, TMC is an ‘outsider’ party for Meghalaya. When I say that, there is nothing racial about it because they are a party from West Bengal. If they think that is racial, then it is sad. They should be proud of the fact that they are from West Bengal.
Much is being said about the now-hostile relationship between the NPP and the BJP. You are even contesting solo …
We (the NPP) have always contested elections on our own terms, our own ideologies. When we fight, we fight. The BJP is fighting against us, and we are fighting against them. That is what democracy is. Let people decide. Post-poll alliance is something we have always kept open. If people don’t give the NPP a mandate and it has to be a coalition, the political parties have no choice but to sit together and figure out a good and stable government for the state and its people.
And Bernard Marak’s arrest? The BJP accuses you of a political vendetta …
There had been multiple complaints about the location Bernard was running. The police acted as per law when a minor girl, gave in writing to court, that she was raped multiple times there. That is when the police went in and found different kinds of weapons, illegal activities … but the police acted as per law. In that entire case, there was not even a single time when I called a meeting, or even called the district SP to see what was happening. I just did not want to interfere with the process. But in spite of that, people still blame me.
There has been criticism about your border pact with Assam.
It requires political will to take a decision like that forward. They will always be critics. We knew we were taking the people to a better situation by resolving this long-pending issue, which had been just left because people are politically scared to touch it or because they feel their fingers would be burnt. Lot of political people came and told me ‘don’t do this’, but I said no. Years later, when I look back and I ask myself the question, ‘Do I regret doing this?’ Well, I would have regretted it if I had not done something.
But will the firing incident at Mukroh stall the second part of the process?
There will never be a perfect solution but we will strive towards the best possible solution. Mukroh was sad and unfortunate. It has put a hurdle on this entire process. We need to discuss with Assam and the government of India how to overcome this but this should not change our final goal of finding a solution.
"The Congress was a strong, united opposition, and now because of the political circumstances, they (the Opposition) are divided," says Sangma. (PTI) 
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