With 32 out of 60 seats, BJP to rule Manipur again but without crutches

IMPHAL: Riding on a record voter turnout of over 89%, BJP on Thursday scripted a stupendous electoral victory in Manipur by giving itself an absolute majority in the newly elected Manipur assembly and a second successive government.


BJP went past the halfway mark in the Manipur assembly in its second outing, a feat that the party in neighbouring Assam could not achieve in its two attempts in 2016 and 2021. Though the party won 32 of the 60 seats, it has hinted at making its ally for the last five years, Naga People’s Front, a partner in the government. It has, however, decided to dump its other ally, National People’s Party (

NPP

), with whose support it had formed its first government in the state in 2017.

All the three parties, which had come together after the polls five years ago, fought this election as separate entities.

On way to the victory podium, BJP literally ran over Congress handing it its worst defeat while most of the other participating parties made gains over the last election.

“From the beginning, we were expecting to achieve an absolute majority and form the government on our own. I do not believe that NPP will be part of the government but we would want to follow the path of coalition dharma…there is no harm in keeping NPF,” incumbent chief minister N Biren Singh said.

This will be the second time BJP would keep an ally despite having majority in the northeast. In 2018, it had won with an absolute majority in Tripura but remained loyal to its pre-poll ally IPFT and kept the tribal-based party as its partner in the government.