india

Updated: Jun 08, 2019 07:12 IST

The National People’s Party (NPP) has been recognised as the eighth national party by the Election Commission of India, making it the first regional party of the north-east to be accorded the status.

The party fulfilled the criteria by being a state party in four states — Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and in a recent entry, Arunachal Pradesh.

While party president Conrad Sangma is the chief minister of Meghalaya, Y Joykumar is the deputy CM of Manipur. NPP is a constituent of Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a political coalition of northeastern states led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

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In an order dated June 7, the EC said that in its review of NPP’s poll performance, it found that the party won 14.55% of the total votes and sent five legislators to the 60-member Arunachal Pradesh assembly.

The sym bold of a book has been allotted to the NPP.

NPP is the largest party in Meghalaya with 20 MLAs in the state assembly. It has four MLAs in Manipur, and three in Nagaland. All these states have 60-member assemblies.

Sangma told HT that this was a proud moment for the party’s workers.

“This is a fitting tribute to the party’s founding president, Purno Agitok Sangma who had the vision to make NPP a national party. A regional party from the Northeast with a presence in four of the region’s states speaks of our unity and adds to our responsibility as a political entity,” he said.

NPP was created in January 2013 by former Lok Sabha speaker and Meghalaya chief minister PA Sangma, after he was expelled from the Nationalist Congress Party.