Guwahati, May 15 (Inditop) Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and former Lok Sabha speaker Purno Agitok Sangma Friday made a literal U-turn saying his party cannot “trust the Congress”, while claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was not “untouchable”.
“We are ready to include the Congress if they support Sharad Pawar as the prime minister. But one thing is for sure, one cannot really trust the Congress party and there is no question of supporting the Congress,” Sangma told journalists here.
“We want to have a non-Congress and non-BJP government at the centre and we have the support of Jayalalithaa (AIADMK), Amar Singh (Samajwadi Party), Chiranjeevi (Praja Rajyam Party), Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal), and so we want the Congress to gracefully accept Sharad Pawar’s leadership and join us.”
The veteran tribal leader from Meghalaya said the NCP units of the northeast and Jammu and Kashmir had told their party leader that at no cost should they support the Congress party.
“For us, no party is untouchable, not even the BJP,” Sangma said.
He said there were no differences in opinion within the NCP.
“We don’t have any differences in opinion within the party on key issues,” Sangma said.
Sangma’s comments are in sharp contrast to statements made by another senior NCP leader Praful Patel who told journalists in New Delhi Saturday that Congress being the senior partner, the prime ministership should go to that party.
“The Congress is a party where their leaders don’t even listen to their own prime minister (Manmohan Singh),” Sangma said making a reference to the recent swearing in of a Congress-led government in Meghalaya with the support of the United Democratic Party (UDP).
Talks were on at the highest level in New Delhi between Sangma and the prime minister earlier this week to have a Congress-NCP government at the centre, but at the last moment under pressure from the local unit of the Congress in Meghalaya, the party high command decided to go with the UDP.