Conrad, who took charge as Meghalaya CM, is one of P.A. Sangma’s 4 children; his sisters are named after British novelist Agatha Christie.
New Delhi: What is common between Conrad Sangma — who took oath as Meghalaya chief minister Tuesday — and his three siblings? All four were named after famous international writers.
As the children of the late Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma, their names came straight out of their father’s library, according to people who were once close to the late leader.
Sangma, who was the opposition presidential candidate in 2012, had himself said that his two daughters — Christie and Agatha — were named after the British novelist, Agatha Christie.
Agatha served as minister of state for rural development in the UPA-II government.
Sangma had said that in 1977, then Orissa chief minister Biju Patnaik gifted him an Agatha Christie book and this inspired him to name his two daughters after the queen of crime thrillers.
While no such anecdote can be found behind his sons’ names — Conrad and James — their possible links to well-known authors Joseph Conrad and James Joyce, can’t be ruled out, said a journalist who once interviewed Agatha. He added that P.A. Sangma was an avid reader and that he was fan of these authors.
While Conrad, a Polish-British writer, is best known for his work Heart of Darkness, Irish author James Joyce is one of the most influential authors of the 20th century whose work Ulysses had created ripples across the literary world.
P.A. Sangma’s love for books is best exemplified by the symbol of his party he founded, the National People’s Party (NPP) — a book.
Sangma’s own autobiography titled, ‘A Life in Politics’ narrates his journey from an impoverished family in the West Garo Hills in Meghalaya to New Delhi, exhorting how tribal youth need to move beyond reservation to make something of their lives.
Conrad, 40, took over as the 12th chief minister of Meghalaya Tuesday. The Conrad-led NPP formed the government in alliance with the BJP, United Democratic Party and Hill State People’s Democratic Party.
While Agatha was the youngest minister in the UPA government in 2009, Conrad and James were leading the opposition front in the Meghalaya assembly. Christie is the only sibling who has stayed out of politics.
“Conrad has that quality to some extent that the late P.A. Sangma had. If he gets enough time in his tenure, then he will develop it,” said Arvind Netam, a tribal politician from Chhattisgarh who was thrown out of Congress after he backed Sangma in the Presidential race in 2012.
“The legacy is there and they’ve got political training from their father. Sangma’s children will fill the vacuum that their father felt was missing in terms of regional politics in the northeast,” Netam added.
After winning 19 seats in the Meghalaya assembly and forming a government through an alliance in Manipur, and now in Nagaland, Conrad seems poised to fulfill his father’s vision of making NPP a truly regional party, political observers said.