GUWAHATI: A day after the National People’s Party (NPP) withdrew its support to the BJP-led government in Manipur, NPP president and Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Monday said the withdrawal of support was specific to his counterpart N Biren Singh.Talking to the media, Sangma said, “We have withdrawn our support to the Biren Singh-led government, so it is very specific to him, the individual. If we see that there is a change in leadership, a positive step forward and a plan to find a solution and we can constructively cooperate and contribute so that peace and normalcy return, then we will be happy to be working (with BJP) but we will see the situation. It is difficult to say right now.”Sangma also said that the NPP was supporting the government hoping that the situation would improve and normalcy would return but in the last week, the situation further deteriorated. “I spoke to central leaders, including from BJP. I said it is important to create confidence-building measures. The actions taken were not reaching a logical conclusion because of the trust deficit and hence, we stressed that some kinds of trust-building measures must be taken from the government side, Centre as well as state, to be able to then create that environment for the actions to actually have a positive result. That, in a way, was not done, the NPP chief said.He emphasised the reason for withdrawing the support is that he has lost complete confidence in the current leadership of Biren Singh after seeing the suffering of people, especially in the last week, and the situation overall not improving any further.He lamented the incidents of attacks targeted at MLAs saying this is not the way to find a solution but added that the party understands the sentiments of people in Manipur are very high.He also said that his party, being the second largest party in Manipur are happy to cooperate and work in a positive way to find a solution to the problem and are hopeful that positive steps will be taken to ensure peace and normalcy return.
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