Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya elections: What’s at stake for BJP, Congress, TMC

The Election Commission has announced that state Assembly elections in states of the Northeast will be held next month. First up is Tripura on February 16, while Meghalaya and Nagaland vote on February 27. Results will be declared on March 2. Three of the Northeast’s seven sister states going to the polls in a way signals the beginning of the countdown to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Elections in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Telangana are also due later this year, not to mention the possible elections in the Union territory of and Jammu & Kashmir. What’s at stake in the elections to the three Northeast states? Can the BJP deepen its imprint in the region? How is the Congress challenge shaping up, and can Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul be a dark horse? To answer all such questions and more, we have Prabin Kalita, The Times of India’s bureau chief for the Northeast. How do the BJP’s chances look in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland?The BJP has already set its footprints In the states five years back and this time they would definitely be looking for strengthening this foothold in these three states. Two of the poll-bound states, Meghalaya and Nagaland, are Christian-majority states and five years back the BJP has broken the “religion barrier” and they have been embraced in Nagaland; not so much in Meghalaya, they just won two seats last time in Meghalaya. This is a big opportunity for BJP to spread its wings in the Northeast and there will be certainly looking at increasing their number of chief ministers. Out of the seven Northeast states they have chief ministers in four states so they will be looking to add at least one more chief minister and that could probably be Meghalaya.What is the scene with the Congress in these states?It appears that BJP has achieved its target of making the Northeast Congress-mukt -- that was their slogan in 2016 when they first won in Assam. It appears that they have achieved that. In Nagaland the Congress got zero seats last time. In Meghalaya they ended up as the single-largest party in 2018 but couldn't form the government. Now the Congress is totally battered in Meghalaya; more than half of them have left Congress and switched over to the Trinamul Congress (TMC) and the remaining few have either gone to the NPP, which is the leading partner in the alliance or its other constituent parties. What about Mamata’s party TMC’s chances in the Northeast?Meghalaya is a newfound state for TMC in the Northeast. In 2018 they had they wanted to contest in Tripura because they have a natural advantage with Tripura being Bengali-speaking majority state but the last moment they pulled out of the race. It is interesting to note that Meghalaya is where they have decided to pull out all stops -- if not forming government to at least becoming the biggest Opposition party. In fact after the Congress MLAs switched over, the TMC is currently the biggest Opposition party in Meghalaya so that must have been the tipping point for Mamata Banerjee to try and make a mark in the Northeast by at least becoming the biggest Opposition party in one of the states. And they have chosen the Garo Hills side, that's away from the mainland Meghalaya that is Shillong, and that's sandwiched between West Bengal, Assam and Bangladesh on the southern side. So they have a lot of Bengali speaking-population -- Muslims and Hindus, unlike the rest of the state where the Khasis and the Jayantiyas, the majority of whom are Christian.How important will post-poll machinations be, given that mass defection of MLAs remains a possibility?This is one character that we have been noticing in the Northeast ever since the BJP started making its footprints here, you might see a barrage of pre-poll movements from one party to another but post-poll movements are rarely seen. The BJP -- could be one of its strategies -- whoever they want to have, they bring them in before the elections and not after the elections. For example on Tuesday some leaders have already left the ruling NPP and jumped over to another constituent party of the ruling alliance. But most of the “exports and imports” have already happened in all the three states, and the BJP also has lost some of its MLAs in Tripura.How far is insurgency an issue in these three states? How far will the Naga peace process affect the elections, for example?In Nagaland there are two camps now of insurgent groups in peace talks. One is the NSCN-IM and other is called Naga National Political Groups (NNPG) which have the remaining seven insurgent groups. These two groups have already signed the preliminary agreements with the Government of India. NSCN in 2015 and NNPG in 2018. Talks have concluded for the NNPG in 2019. But the NSCIN-IM talks are still inconclusive. Since then there has been a lot of hue & cry in Nagaland, with civil society, the Opposition parties and the insurgent groups asking the government to sign the final settlement. In 2018 the slogan was “election for solution.” This time that that same slogan has been changed to “no solution, no election.” The insurgent groups have not spelt out their stand but a citizens’ group, Nagaland People’s Action Committee has said they will decide when the election notification is issues, which is on January 31. “It looks like they are determined to have a solution before elections and Nagaland is could be heading for a constitutional crisis,” Prabin says. There is one more factor -- the Eastern Nagaland People's Organisation has raised a demand that four districts in the eastern part of Nagaland be made a separate state. Chief minister Neiphiu Rio has said in clear terms: “We are not going to allow Nagaland to slip into a constitutional crisis because of boycott of elections.” Audio production: Sahil Gupta