E-Paper
The poll bugle rings in the Northeast
The four states that will see assembly elections in 2023 may not have much Lok Sabha heft but are crucial because of the issues they represent and the timing of polls
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Meghalaya and Tripura on Sunday, accompanied by Union home minister Amit Shah, marked the beginning of the assembly election season in the Northeast, many of which are going to the polls next year. Mr Modi’s speech in Shillong, where he extolled the achievements of the government in resolving various law-and-order and developmental challenges for the Northeast, was preceded by him inaugurating projects worth ₹6,800 crore.
The four states that will see assembly elections in 2023 — Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland likely in February and Mizoram towards the end of the year — may not have much Lok Sabha heft (with six seats between them) but are crucial because of the issues they represent and the timing of polls in an election season that leads up to the 2024 general elections. Expanding its footprint in the Northeast has been one of the BJP’s most significant achievements — the party is either in power or part of the ruling coalition in almost every state in the region — given that it had almost no presence in any state save Assam before 2014 and doesn’t enjoy any ideological or religious affinity with the grassroots. Replacing the Congress as the dominant force in the region has been another endorsement of the BJP’s stature as a hegemon and given it bragging rights (especially in the symbolic displacement of Tripura’s Left Front government in 2018). There are hurdles though. Rumblings in the ruling coalition are apparent in Meghalaya, the BJP administration in Tripura faces a resurgent new force in Tipra Motha and niggling worries about the Naga peace pact persist — making sure that the upcoming electoral contest will be riveting.
