Leaning On Locals

The BJP’s rise in the Northeast also has a downside— its dependence on capricious allies. Still, with the Congress in disarray, the NDA is on a strong wicket

- Kaushik Deka

When the Lok Sabha election was held in 2014, the Congress ruled five of the eight Northeast states while the BJP was politically insignificant with just nine MLAs and four MPs across the region. But in the past five years, the political landscape has dramatically changed. The BJP is in power in five states while the Congress is nowhere in the picture. On paper, the BJP looks even more solid as most of the regional parties are part of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), an umbrella outfit led by the BJP. Only the Left, Tri­ namool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) are outside it, but these four parties have not joined hands with the Congress either.

But electoral politics in the Northeast doesn’t always follow set patt­ erns and, as they say, the devil lies in the details. In 14 seats—10 from As­ sam and two each from Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur—the BJP and Congress will have a direct contest. In Tripura’s two seats, the BJP will be in a triangular contest with the Congress and the Left. In Meghalaya (two seats), Mizoram (one seat) and in four seats in Assam, the Congress takes on regional parties with the BJP either not contesting or with little chance of making a mark. In Sikkim and Nagaland, which have one seat each, the two national parties are not in contention. This means the BJP, on its own, can win a maximum 16 out of the 25 seats in the Northeast.