Elections in 3 N-E states in Feb-March

After Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, another round of assembly elections are set to be announced in the north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland. The elections are likely to take place in February end and March first week. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jan 10, 2013, 01:57:46 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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After Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, another round of assembly elections are set to be announced in the north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland. The elections are likely to take place in February end and March first week.

According to sources, the Election Commission would be announcing single phase elections for the three states next week. The commission has visited the three states recently to review the security and poll preparedness there. The term of the states assemblies would be ending by mid-March 2013 before which elections are to be conducted.

The power in the three states having 60 members each legislative assembly is divided between the Congress in Meghalaya, Nagaland People's Front in Nagaland and CPIM in Tripura.

The Congress has already announced its all 60 candidate for Meghalaya elections while former Lok Sabha speaker PA Sangma led National People's Party (NPP) has announced to contest all the seats.

Sangma recently broke away from the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar and joined the National Democratic Front after contesting Presidential elections against Pranab Mukherjee. The elections would test Sangma's popularity in his home turf, where his arch rival is chief minister Mukul Sangma.

In Tripura, the Left would try its best to save its last bastion in the country after being ousted in West Bengal and Kerala. The Left had a strong hold in the state neighbouring Myanmar but is pitted against emerging local party Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura and the Congress.

Nagaland could witness a close contest with Nagaland People's Front leader and chief minister Neiphiu Rio pitted against the Congress, which won 23 seats in last assembly elections in 2008.

Commission sources said adequate central para-military forces would be deployed in these states, especially in extremist hit Nagaland, to deal with any terror threat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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