BJP prepares to go all out for coming polls in Nagaland, NE

December 24, 2017 317 Views No Comment

Appealing to voters with the tag ‘party with a difference’ and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm of affairs, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking to transform into saffron, the remaining States in North East India with Assembly elections slated for early 2018 in Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura.

In little more than a year, the BJP has gone from no governments and little presence on the ground to holding power in three states in the region. Assam and Manipur voted in BJP governments while in Arunachal Pradesh, Congress legislators shifted allegiance to the BJP en masse leading to formation of its government.

(File photo) CM of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Sikkim met Amit Shah and proposed to join an alliance of non-congress parties in NE on May 24, 2016

That it is serious to go all out to return BJP governments in the coming elections, top BJP leadership on December 23, 2017 appointed two of its most shrewd and resourceful leaders to politically manage the party’s electoral battle in Nagaland and Tripura.

Party President Amit Shah has appointed Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju as incharge of party affairs in Nagaland and Assam Health and Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of Tripura. The BJP President appointed both to the party posts in view of the two assembly elections next year, a party statement said.

Elections in Tripura and Nagaland were held in February 2013 and the tenure of current assemblies comes to an end in March 2018. Tripura is governed by the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist since 1993, while Nagaland is governed by the Naga Peoples Front led Democratic Alliance of Nagaland that includes the BJP.

Meanwhile, keeping its momentum on making further inroads across the country, the BJP on Sunday wrested both the Pakke-Kessang and Likabali assembly seats from the Congress in the by-elections to these constituencies in Arunachal Pradesh. With this, the 60-member state assembly now has 49 MLAs from the saffron party, nine from the Peoples’ Party of Arunachal (PPA), one Congress and one independent legislator.

An important factor to note in the politics of North East India is that, States in the region have traditionally tended towards the party in power at the Centre as it holds the promise of more funds and resources for the neglected region.

And therefore even if a non-BJP government comes to power in Nagaland, it is likely that the ruling party will enter into some kind of alliance with the BJP or another strong possibility is legislators switching to the BJP as it happened in Arunachal Pradesh.

Interestingly in Nagaland, though the BJP is part of the present DAN Alliance, for the upcoming polls in 2018, the party has decided to go it alone. Nagaland BJP President, Visasolie Lhoungu had recently declared that the party would contest in all the 60 Assembly Constituencies in 2018 without any pre-poll alliance.

Without naming any other political party, Lhoungu said “we all know the present political scenario in the state”, and it is time for the BJP to take over the government. Therefore, “BJP party is the only alternative for the next election”, he added. Lhoungu also claimed that BJP membership in the State had reached over 2 lakh.

Similarly the BJP in Mizoram would not forge any pre-electoral alliance with Mizo National Front, a constituent of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) and would contest all the seats in the Mizoram Assembly election to be held next year, a senior party leader had said.

File copy of the press release issued in May 2016

It will be interesting to observe the longetivity of the North East Democratic Alliance, if the BJP decides to project itself as the only alternative minus the alliances with regional political outfits in the region. It may be mentioned that the NEDA was formed in 2016. The Chief Ministers of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Sikkim had met the national President Amit Shah on May 24, 2016 and had proposed to join an alliance of non-Congress parties in the North East.

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