There are not many surprises about the results of the elections in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. The next question is who will form the governments in these three states. It was a foregone conclusion that Meghalaya would throw up a hung house and political parties are therefore prepared for it.
BJP’s Meghalaya Push
Publicly of course, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had touted that it would get double-digit figures in Meghalaya after having set up candidates in 60 seats. But even the BJP in its quiet moments would know that it has not yet got a foothold in Meghalaya. Right now, it only has a toehold winning in just 3 of the 60 seats, which is just one seat more than in the last election in 2018.
So to say that the BJP has made huge inroads into Meghalaya is a bit of an exaggeration although the Party is no longer the bugbear that the tribal Christians once painted it as. The reason is because the BJP campaign in Meghalaya has been shrewdly tailored to appease the majority Christian population. So religion and beef ban were not on the election plate.
Will NPP Include BJP?
What is surprising for Meghalaya is that the National Peoples’ Party (NPP) despite the string of corruption allegations has managed to do better than the last time. This time the NPP has bettered its tally, taking it to 25. Now it only needs its old partners like the UDP and PDF to stitch up a coalition, without requiring the BJP’s 3 MLAs.
But will Himanta Biswa Sarma, the BJP strongman and Chief Minister of Assam, allow that to happen? Why did Conrad Sangma, the NPP President and CM of Meghalaya, meet him three days ago if not to work out a coalition dharma with the BJP which holds the purse strings in Delhi.
Both in Meghalaya and Nagaland elections have proved yet again that people have resigned themselves to corruption as an inevitable part of governance. So poor are people that freebies and cash for votes are an accepted part of life. Governments no longer suffer anti-incumbency unless they have done something outrageous.
Identity Politics
The MDA Government in Meghalaya and the NDPP-BJP government in Nagaland have both claimed that they have brought peace. It’s a different matter that extortion continues to bedevil entrepreneurs and businesses in Nagaland and that the non-tribal population in Meghalaya continue to live with an all-pervasive sense of insecurity for being a minority in the state.
In fact the three MLAs that have won on the BJP ticket have done so because of the largely non-tribal votes. Both seats are unreserved and open for contest by non-tribal candidates but they have meekly surrendered the seats to tribal representatives knowing fully well that if tribal candidate contest from those constituencies and a non-tribal wins, the non-tribals will face a backlash.
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Tripura’s case is the exact opposite. There it is the tribes that feel threatened since they are just about 35 percent of the population. The TIPRA Motha’s case is precisely that. They want a special status so that they can safeguard their customary practices, language, culture which are presently under threat of being subsumed in the larger Bengali culture since the Bengali population is the majority there.
BJP’s Next Moves
It appears that in Tripura the BJP might be able to go it alone, rather than be burdened by the Motha’s demand for a separate state which could snowball into a never-ending enigma.
So ultimately the BJP will form the government with its former ally the NPP in Meghalaya and with the NDPP plus others in Nagaland. It will form the government in Tripura but might want to get some more MLAs from the Motha into its fold even if it has to split the party. These are signs to look out for in the next few days.
Patricia Mukhim is Editor, The Shillong Times, and author of the book "Waiting for an Equal World". Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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