'Need To Ally With Party That Can...': Meghalaya CM After Exit Poll Results, Says Report

The BJP, which won only two seats in the state in 2018, will increase its total to six, as per the exit poll.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, whose NPP (National People's Party) may wind up as the state's single largest party in the assembly elections that ended today, hinted that his partnership with the BJP may be resurrected shortly, NDTV reported.

"If we just obtain a fraction of the mandate, we'll have to talk to other parties about forming a government... We are aiming to form a party that can represent the northeast on a national level " Sangma stated this after four exit polls suggested that the NPP may win 20 of Meghalaya's 60 seats, NDTV reported. That would fall well short of the Chief Minister's party's majority of 31 in the 60-member house.

The BJP, which won only two seats in the state in 2018, will increase its total to six. According to exit polls, the Congress may win six seats and the Trinamool Congress might gain 11 seats.

While exit polls are sometimes incorrect, if they are true, even an alliance with the BJP may not be enough to give Sangma the numbers he needs. In that situation, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress may wind up being the deciding factor.

As part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Act East" agenda, the BJP formed a chain of partnerships in the northeast with the founding of NEDA, or the North East Democratic Alliance, in 2017.

While NEDA brought together a variety of socioeconomic and ethnic groupings, it also gave the BJP with allies in each state, putting all seven states under its control.

While the party was re-elected to a second term in Assam two years ago, it has established alliances with local forces to form part of the government in the other states.

In Meghalaya, the BJP won only two seats in 2018, yet it was able to form a coalition government with the NPP. After a schism over corruption charges against Sangma's party, the two parties ran separate campaigns this time.

"After I took over NPP after father's death I made it clear When we go to election, we should fight on our ideology. We have contested on ideology, not on pre-poll alliances," Sangma said today, NDTV reported.

"We have to realise that election is different from government formation. The northeast gets divided amongst themselves and the numbers don't give us enough voice at the national level," he added.