No party to get majority in Manipur, says Conrad K Sangma

Chief minister of Meghalaya and National People's Party (NPP) president Conrad K Sangma said that no party will get a clear majority in Manipur assembly election. Talking to Bikash Singh, he said NPP will be the single largest party.

How was the experience of running a coalition government in Manipur, how many seats are you expecting?
Last fiveyears have been very challenging from a coalition perspective and many problems came up. We tried to resolve them, sadly a lot of those issues were not resolved. Since we have given commitment to NDA here in Manipur, we decided to continue. In the middle there was a crisis, however we managed to bring the entire team back. It was difficult as we could not move the way we wanted, however, these are complexities of coalition politics, but I feel things could have been managed much better. We have always fought elections on our own, we have always done it. We want to fight on our ideology.


When the public gives mandate we must figure out how coalition politics start and how to form the government. We expect that this time due to the current political situation, where we are seeing certain parties declining and, in some parties, there is too much infighting. There is space and vacuum. We feel NPP is in the right sphere and in the position to attract good candidates, which we have done. We will cross double digits and close to become single largest party and on very a strong wicket in comparison to last time.

Will there be post poll alliance?
Of course, depending upon the mandate, formations and combinations will start post polls. It happened last time also. Right now, it is difficult to say what will be the structure of it and it depends upon which party will get how many seats. There is going to be a coalition and no party is going to get a clear majority.

You have been vocal in demanding the scrapping of the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA). Do you think it is possible?
Our stand against AFSPA has been there for the last 20 years. If you listen to PA Sangma speeches and my campaign in Manipur polls in 2002, I have spoken against AFSPA. In today's world and situation, there is relatively more peace in Northeast India and Manipur. We do not require AFSPA. Many AFSPA cases is counterproductive. This kind of situation requires building trust, talking to people, and discussion. We don't require military forces to resolve, sometimes military force is required but in this situation it can be counterproductive. If the state government strongly advocates against it, lobbies against it, there is a strong chance that the government of India will listen.

Why do you think people will vote for NPP?
In smaller states, Manipur is one, where elections are candidate centric. Political parties play an important role in attracting candidates who are winning. We have laid out our vision of Northeast, candidates have joined us, good candidates have joined us. Based on this, we feel we will do well in this election. We have put Northeast India in front and taken up issues immediately.