Conrad Kongkal Sangma (born 27 January 1978) is an Indian politician who has been Chief Minister of Meghalaya since March 2018. He is the national president of the National People’s Party, the first party from the North-East to be recognised as a national party. He is the son of P. A. Sangma, the former Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Conrad Kongkal Sangma |
| Born | 27 January 1978, Tura, West Garo Hills, Meghalaya |
| Age | 48 |
| State | Meghalaya |
| Education | St Columba’s School, New Delhi; Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (BBA); Imperial College London (MBA) |
| Party | National People’s Party (president) |
| Offices | Chief Minister of Meghalaya (since 2018); Member of the Lok Sabha for Tura (2016–2018); Finance Minister of Meghalaya (2008–2009) |
| Father | P. A. Sangma |
| Spouse | Dr Mehtab Chandee |
| Children | 2 |
Early Life
He was born at Tura in the Garo Hills, into the Garo tribe. His father, Purno Agitok Sangma, was a Union minister for many years, Chief Minister of Meghalaya, Speaker of the Lok Sabha from 1996 to 1998 and a candidate for President of India in 2012. Conrad grew up mostly in Delhi, where he attended St Columba’s School.
Education
He took a bachelor’s degree in business at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in finance at Imperial College London.
Career
Entry
He returned to India and managed his father’s election campaigns. He lost his first assembly election, by a small margin, in 2004. He was elected from Selsella in the Garo Hills in 2008 and, at thirty, became Meghalaya’s Minister of Finance, Power and Tourism, presenting the state budget within days of taking office. From 2010 to 2013 he was Leader of the Opposition.
The National People’s Party
P. A. Sangma, expelled from his former party for contesting the presidential election, founded the National People’s Party in 2013. When he died in March 2016, Conrad succeeded him as party president and won the by-election for his Lok Sabha seat of Tura by a record margin.
Chief Minister
In the assembly election of 2018 the Congress won the most seats, but Sangma, with nineteen, assembled a coalition with regional parties and the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was sworn in on 6 March 2018, aged forty.
In 2023 his party fought alone, increased its tally to twenty-six of the sixty seats and again formed a coalition government.
- **Border:** in 2022 he signed an agreement with Assam settling six of the twelve disputed stretches of the two states’ boundary
- **Economy:** programmes for rural entrepreneurs, tourism and the state’s young people
- **Local sentiment:** he opposed the Citizenship Amendment Act and has backed the demand for an inner line permit system for the state, positions that set him at times against his BJP allies
- **Coal:** his government has had to deal with the consequences of the ban on unscientific “rat-hole” mining
In 2019 the NPP was recognised by the Election Commission as a national party.
Family in Politics
His sister, Agatha Sangma, became the youngest minister in the Union government in 2009, at twenty-eight, and has sat for Tura in the Lok Sabha. His brother James has been a minister in Meghalaya.
Personal Life
He is married to Dr Mehtab Chandee, a physician; they have two daughters. He is a guitarist and a devotee of rock music, and videos of him playing songs by Iron Maiden at public events have been widely shared. He is a Christian, like most of his state’s people.
Meghalaya’s cultural figures include the Shillong musician Lou Majaw.
Featured image: Conrad Sangma, Chief Minister of Meghalaya, in July 2024. Photo by the Prime Minister’s Office, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
