Conrad Sangma-led MDA 2.0 has eight ministers from Khasi Hills

GUWAHATI: The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance 2.0 of five parties headed by Conrad Sangma will be sworn-in at Shillong for the second successive term on Tuesday in presence of PM Narendra Modi.
Sangma announced on Monday that the alliance would be called Meghalaya Democratic Alliance 2.0 which has 45 MLAs from NPP, BJP, HSPDP, UDP, PDP and two Independents in the house of 60.
"Its the similar identical team of MDA 1.0. The original team is back to work for the people of Meghalaya. I believe in teamwork," Sangma said.Sangma himself rose above party politics and embraced his old partners with open arms, accommodating them in the cabinet. The alliance members met on Monday morning where it was decided to name the alliance as MDA 2.0 with the chief minister as the chairman.

"Of the 12 cabinet berths, eight will be with NPP, two with UDP and one each with BJP and HSPDP," he said. The entire cabinet will also be sworn-in on Tuesday.
To address the calls for a Khasi CM this time, which Sangma, a Garo, said, "The meeting decided that out of 12 cabinet ministers only four, including the chief minister will be from Garo hills while the rest eight cabinet ministers will be chosen from the MLAs from Khasi hills region."

Sangma said that he also will reach out to all coalition partners to decide on the consensus candidate for the post of the speaker.

The NPP-led alliance was just 32 MLAs of NPP, BJP, HSPDP and the two Independents until Sunday when UDP with 11 MLAs and the PDF with two MLAs extended unconditional support to Sangma.

Sangma since the declaration of the election results on Thursday has been working on getting his old team together again and he reached out to them personally to join hands.

"When elections came we had our differences, we campaigned in our own ways, speeches were given which did not go well with some. But at the end of day, we need to serve the people. We need to raise above all our differences. People who have given us the mandate are looking at us," Sangma said.

"The spirit of team-work is important, that is why after we got support from HSPDP, Independents and BJP I spoke to all my colleagues and told them that we should bring back our team for 2018. I personally reached out to the leaders of UDP and PDF many many times. I requested them to let us forget all our differences in the elections and work together again," Sangma said.