NPP will continue to be voice of NE region: Conrad

Meghalaya chief minister and National People’s Party (NPP) national president Conrad K Sangma has affirmed that NPP would continue to be the voice of the people specially of the Northeast region.
Addressing a press conference here on June 27, Sangma said NPP was a platform that wants to represent the aspirations and the concerns of the people of Northeast region specially the indigenous people.
“Though we are a party that has got a national status, we are made of the states from the northeast so any states we are recognised in are in the northeast,” he said.
He said that having a national outlook with regional mindset and regional approach was exactly what the NPP was doing.
Further, Sangma said NPP would always look at the different issues that impacted the northeast. “And whenever there has been a situation that we feel that issues of Northeast are being impacted, you have found that NPP has always raised its voice,” Meghalaya CM said.
Asked about the BJP playing the role of an opposition in Meghalaya, he said every party has their own identity, agenda and every party as their right to say what they want to say.
On NPP positioning itself in the evolving political scenario at the national and northeast region, he said the position in the northeast was very fast and there were a lot of complications in the northeast. “It is not a simple political arena and every state is a different playing field and it is not possible to have the same strategy and agenda in all the states,” Sangma said.
Therefore, he said the party needed to be very flexible quick and adapt to the evolving political scenario, adding it could only be done when they have full team on the ground. In spite of the challenges, he said the growth of NPP was evident.
Ask whether NPP would form coalition with other political parties in the future in Nagaland, he said the party looked forward to working towards bringing more seats. Sangma expressed hope that the party would be in a position to be a part of the coalition.
Asked about his views on the Union home minister Amit Shah’s comment on Hindi and English, NPP chief said home minister’s comment on preserving and promoting all regional local language was right but the other part of moving English out of the system was not practical.
He said English had always been a critical part of the society. “English is our official language and will always be a part of our work and activity,” Sangma said.
Therefore, he expressed the view to continue to promote own languages but moving English out of the system was not possible in states like Nagaland and Meghalaya.
Sangma said eve from the global market point of view, the people of two states were proud that they have good English-speaking society.