NCP to woo NE with special package

NEW DELHI, August 11: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has decided to focus on the Northeast in the coming Lok Sabha elections by notching up electoral alliances with regional parties and announcing a special development package for the area in its election manifesto. The party has decided to field candidates in 18 out of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the Northeast. It has also reached an electoral understanding with United Minority Front (UMF) in Assam, United Democratic Party (UDP) in Meghalaya and the TUJS in Tripura to put up joint candidates in several constituencies. The NCP feels that it stands a chance of doing ``fairly well'' in the Northeast with veteran leader P.A. Sangma leading the party's campaign in the various states. A special NE package with ``Peace through Development'' as its main theme forms part of this effort to woo voters in the area and will be part of the manifesto to be released later this month. The party will be contesting all the seats in Assam except two while in Meghalaya, Sangma's home turf, it will fight all the seats. It will fight one out of the two Lok Sabha seats in Arunachal Pradesh and 40 out of the 60 Assembly constituencies in the state. It will also put up a candidate in one of the two seats in Manipur but will not contest in Mizoram and Nagaland since it does not have any organisation there. In keeping with the importance being attached to the Northeast, the party has decided to release its election manifesto, including the NE package, at a special convention in Guwahati on August 21. A core committee comprising veteran leader Sharad Sinha as chairman and Sangma as convenor and with Pradesh unit officebearers as members has been set up to finalise the list of candidates for the NE to be announced at the convention. According to Sangma, the party had also reached an understanding with the JMM in South Bihar and negotiations over seat-sharing and putting up common candidates were at a very advanced stage. He said the NCP-JMM tie up would get a further boost with the slated merger of all the JMM factions. Giving details of the NE package, senior leader P.A. Sangma said today that the party had prepared a development plan for the area with a 25-year perspective. ``The package envisages greater presence of Central government developmental agencies in the area and the integration of the economies of the NE states with those of neighbouring Bangladesh and other South East Asian countries,'' he said. He added that the thrust would be on development which would bring about peace in the region rather than wait for peace before commencing development. Meanwhile, the party's working committee is meeting tomorrow to discuss the draft manifesto and review electoral tie-ups in various states especially with the Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka and Maharasthra and Samajwadi Party in UP and Maharashtra.