- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday (2) showed that issues such as the BBC documentary on prime minister Narendra Modi or the Adani Group’s stock rout didn’t make much on an impact on its electoral prospects as the saffron party went on to bag power in all three states in India’s northeast that recently went to polls.
The BJP and its allies clinched victory in the states of Tripura and Nagaland while efforts were on to make alliance with the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) in Meghalaya and form government.
In Tripura, the BJP-IPFT (Indigenous Progressive Front of Tripura) alliance returned to power by winning 33 out of 60 seats. The score was though 11 less than in 2018 when the BJP wrested the state from the Left which had ruled it for many decades. Last time, the BJP won 36 seats and the IPFT eight.
Modi tweeted, “The double engine government will keep working for the state’s progress. I laud our party workers for their hardwork which ensured this result.”
Erstwhile royal Pradyot Kishore Debbarma’s Tipra Motha, which contested for the first time in this election, won 13 seats. The party, which seeks a Greater Tipraland, appears to have grabbed a share of the IPFT’s tribal base.
The Indian National Congress and the Left, who contested the election in alliance, got 14 seats.
Meghalaya saw a hung house with chief minister Conrad Sangma’s NPP winning 26 seats out of 60 seats. Its renewed alliance with the BJP pushed up its tally to 28 — which was still three short of the majority mark of 31.
Sangma dialled the BJP’s chief strategist and India’s home minister Amit Shah. The two parties had decided to contest alone in the election after a rift over corruption allegation against the NPP.
“Sri @SangmaConrad, Chief Minister of Meghalaya, called @AmitShah ji, Hon’ble Home Minister, and sought his support and blessings in forming the new Government,” tweeted Himanta Biswa Sarma, chief minister of another northeastern state of Assam and the BJP’s pointsperson in the northeast.
Sangma and Sarma had a meeting on the eve of the results day inAssam’s Guwahati where, sources said, the alliance was discussed.
Meghalaya’s new entrant Trinamool Congress won five seats, and defying exit poll predictions, the Indian National Congress won five seats.
In Nagaland, the BJP and its partner NDPP (Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party) won 37 seats – seven more than the last time — out of 60.
