Conrad Sangma the National People’s Party’s chief took his oath as Meghalaya’s new CM. He was invited by the governor Ganga Prasad to form the government. This was after the NPP formed an alliance with BJP and three other regional parties. This left Congress out of the running, despite emerging as the largest party, making it a similar defeat it saw in Goa and Manipur.
To win the elections the NPP formed an alliance with the United Democratic Party, the People’s Democratic Front, and the Hill State People’s Democratic party and the BJP of course. But fissures appeared when HSPDP accused NPP of taking a decision unilaterally and objected to Conrad Sangma as the choice for the post of the Chief Minister. This left the Congress which till then had a 21 seat majority behind. Rahul Gandhi, of course, commented calling it the ‘demonetisation of democracy’.
Sangma will be facing the challenge of assuring stability in the state. HSPDP is also against the inclusion of the BJP in the alliance, they were hoping for a non-Congress, non-BJP government to reign. The smaller number of seats signifies a smaller share for all the parties involved but they will all have the same amount of bargaining power as well. Rajnath Singh and BJP president Amit Shah also attended the ceremony. Eleven other ministers also took an oath along with Sangma. Even without HSPDP’s support, the coalition will not be threatened. Congress will continue to cry foul over the election results and in this case, they might have a legitimate reason to be offended too. It will be at the end of five years that the people of Meghalaya will know if the coalition will be worth it. Sangma himself admitted it wouldn’t be easy, but he will have to try without a doubt.