Meghalaya BJP president Ernest Mawrie said the saffron party will submit a letter of support to the NPP on Thursday night to form the next government in the state.

BJP, which contested the assembly elections alone and won two seats despite being in an alliance government with the NPP during the last five years, would have bagged more seats had the two allies fought in partnership, he said.

"Today, around 6 pm, I got a call from our national president J P Nadda. He asked me to convene a meeting of the state BJP and extend support to the NPP in government formation," Mawrie told PTI.

The National People's Party in Meghalaya emerged as the single-largest party in the state on Thursday, clinching 26 seats out of the 59 constituencies that went to polls on February 27, the Election Commission said.

"... We are going to submit the letter of support to (CM) Conrad Sangma tonight itself," Mawrie said.

When pointed out that the NPP and BJP together will also not cross the magic number of 31, he expressed optimism all the partners of the last regime will join hands to form the next government.

On BJP's performance in the elections, Mawrie said: "In the morning, we were leading in 10 seats, but we started trailing after the fourth round. Though the number of seats didn't increase, our vote share went up.” "We worked very hard and lost many seats narrowly," the BJP state unit chief claimed.

In 2018, the BJP had contested 47 seats and won two. Asked if the results would have been different had the BJP and NPP fought together, he said: "May be you're right. We probably would have won more seats in that case. But, as a national party, we need to follow instructions from the central leaders.”

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