Nation / Tue, 04 Jun 2024 The Indian Express

With setbacks in four states, NDA unravels in the Northeast

Lok Sabha Election Results 2024The Congress and non-NDA regional parties have won both seats in Meghalaya and Manipur, and the lone seats in Nagaland and Mizoram. AdvertisementThis time around as well, the NDA had consolidated its alliances in the region. Apart from Mizoram, where the BJP and the MNF – which have a fraying relationship – both contested, the NDA partners consolidated in all other seats. This includes the NPP contesting from both Meghalaya seats, the NDPP in Nagaland, the BJP in Arunachal Pradesh, the NPF in the Outer Manipur seat, and the BJP in the Inner Manipur seat. AdvertisementThe outcome in the other Meghalaya seat, Tura, is also a major upset.

The BJP’s regional partners have lost all the seats that they contested in the Northeast except in Assam, meaning that apart from Arunachal Pradesh, the NDA has lost its hold in all other tribal-majority hill states in the region.

Lok Sabha Election Results 2024

The Congress and non-NDA regional parties have won both seats in Meghalaya and Manipur, and the lone seats in Nagaland and Mizoram. This will result in a considerable change in the power map of the region. In 2019, both seats in Arunachal Pradesh had been won by the BJP; the lone Nagaland seat had been won by NDA partner Nationalist Democratic People’s Party; the lone Mizoram seat had been won by NDA partner Mizo National Front; the Tura set in Meghalaya had been won by NDA partner National People’s Party; the Shillong seat in Meghalaya had been won by the Congress; the Inner Manipur seat had been won by the BJP; and the Outer Manipur seat by NDA partner Naga People’s Front.

This time around as well, the NDA had consolidated its alliances in the region. Apart from Mizoram, where the BJP and the MNF – which have a fraying relationship – both contested, the NDA partners consolidated in all other seats. This includes the NPP contesting from both Meghalaya seats, the NDPP in Nagaland, the BJP in Arunachal Pradesh, the NPF in the Outer Manipur seat, and the BJP in the Inner Manipur seat.

Both seats in Manipur have been lost by the NDA, ostensibly in a wave of resentment against the handling of the ongoing ethnic crisis in the state, with the Congress winning both. The alliance’s reversals in the other seats are major upsets and signal a change in the sentiment in the region with the emergence of new regional forces and the Congress gaining significant ground.

In Meghalaya’s Shillong seat, the recently formed Voice of the People’s Party (VPP) has emerged as a major regional force by sweeping the seat with a margin of 3.7 lakh votes in their Lok Sabha debut. Their candidate Ricky Syngkon defeated three-time MP Vincent Pala from the Congress, who has held the seat since 2009. A close third was the ruling NPP’s Ampareen Lyngdoh, a state cabinet minister who was also seen as a major contender. The VPP is a regionalist party and its manifesto emphasised the implementation of an Inner Line Permit regime in Meghalaya and bringing the state under Article 371 of the Constitution to “protect it from Central laws affecting the traditions and customs of the people”.

However, party chief Ardent Basaiawmoit told reporters after the victory on Tuesday that the prime emphasis of the party is on addressing corruption in the state.

The outcome in the other Meghalaya seat, Tura, is also a major upset. Congress’s Saleng Sangma defeated the incumbent, NPP’s Agatha Sangma, by a margin of 1.5 lakh votes. Apart from a two-year gap between 1989 and 1991, this has been held by members of Agatha Sangma’s family – her father P A Sangma, her brother and current Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, and her – since 1977.

The Congress also pulled off a reversal in electoral patterns in Nagaland, where it emerged in front despite having drawn a blank in the last two assembly elections and having last won the Lok Sabha seat in 1999. Here too the state government is led by a NDPP-BJP NDA coalition government.

AICC in-charge of Nagaland Ranajit Mukherjee attributed the victory to disillusionment among voters in the state with the “opposition-less governments” in Nagaland. MLAs from other parties who were elected to the Nagaland assembly such as the NCP, NPP and NPF all support the current government, effectively meaning that there is not a single Opposition MLA in the assembly.

“Because of what has been happening in the assembly, we became the only opposition party in Nagaland and all the others lost legitimacy before the people… People are genuinely worried about secularism, constitutional values, and that their tribal rights will be taken away. There’s a lot of churning in Naga society that the whole value system of the Christian society is being threatened by the BJP,” he said. There has also been mounting discontent in the state over the continuing impasse over the agreements to the Naga political problem, which Mukherjee said that “everyone wants to move on from”.

In Mizoram, the Zoram People’s Movement, whose fortunes have been in consistent ascendancy in the last few years, swept the lone seat. The party, fresh off a resounding victory in the last November-December state assembly polls, has further stamped its current dominance in Mizo politics after years of political power in the state being concentrated either with the Congress or the MNF.