SHILLONG:
The BJP’s threat to set the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government has not gone down well with its partner National People’s Party (NPP).
Meghalaya in-charge of the BJP Chuba Ao had made the threat on September 3.
Rajya Sabha member and state unit president of the National People’s Party (NPP), Wanwei Roy Kharlukhi, on September 4 said that he did not know whether the two central agencies were working for the BJP. “I don’t know whether it is a right statement to be given by a party in-charge,” he said.
The state NPP president also said that Ao has himself substantiated charges by other political parties like the Congress that the ED and the CBI are being used by the BJP for political purposes.
“Had it come from the Home Minister (Amit Shah), I would have said yes because it is an organ of the government. But a BJP in-charge, a man of the party is saying this,” Kharlukhi said.
He also also said that the threat of the BJP is like crying wolf when there isn’t one.
When told that the BJP has threatened to withdraw from the MDA, he said that six months ago the party had said the same thing and now another six months remain until the 2023 assembly polls.
When asked why the BJP was getting into all this, the NPP president said that the saffron party is caught in “political confusion”.
Kharlukhi said that the BJP will never come to power without the NPP.
“It is only the NPP which helped them…carried them and then were part of the (MDA) government,” he said.
When told that the BJP was saying the opposite, Kharlukhi said, “Without NPP, the BJP will never be in the government and that is a political reality,” he said.
He said that presently, the BJP has only two MLAs and wondered how many more they can get after the 2023.
“They got two, what big jump will they have,” Kharlukhi said.
He said that he pitied the BJP, even as he warned that if the saffron party gets the Aragona virus they will have to be very careful else they will lose in the 2024 national elections.
Kharlukhi also said that those blaming the government for indulging in corruption should file FIR or go to the court if they have proof.
“But just saying that is like hoodwinking the public…it is politics only,” the NPP state unit president said.