: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the National People’s Party (NPP) has no value and voting for its candidates would go to waste.
Addressing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election rally at Moirang on Monday, he also said there would be no place for the NPP in the next government that the BJP would form on its own.
Moirang, about 45 km south of State capital Imphal, was where Subhash Chandra Bose had set up the camp of the Indian National Army during World War 2.
The NPP is a member of the BJP-headed National Democratic Alliance as also the North East Democratic Alliance, of which Mr Sarma is the convenor. The two parties are ruling allies in Manipur and Meghalaya.
“Unlike the BJP, the NPP has no government at the Centre. Voting for it would be fruitless,” the Assam Chief Minister said, making it apparent that the BJP envisages the NPP as the biggest challenger in Manipur.
“The NPP had Ministers in Manipur because of the BJP. But we will form the government on our own and there will be no place for the NPP in it,” he said.
Mr. Sarma had accompanied his Manipur counterpart, Nongthombam Biren Singh to campaign for the BJP’s Moirang candidate Mairembam Prithviraj. His rivals are Congress nominee Pukhrem Sharatchandra and NPP candidate Thongam Shanti.
Mr. Sharatchandra had crossed over from the BJP after being denied a ticket.
Mr. Sarma also cautioned against voting for the Congress, “non-existent elsewhere in the northeast”.
The NPP, which had won four seats in the 2017 elections, has put up 38 candidates this time. The party had pulled out of the Biren Singh government two years ago but returned after a patch-up.
