Four northeastern States are scheduled to go to the polls in February

Leaders of the two national parties, the BJP and Congress, have started focussing on Northeast India where the Assembly elections to Nagaland, Tripura and Meghalaya are due in February. Mizoram goes to the polls later in November.

A large number of Union Ministers and BJP leaders have been visiting the region and Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a power project and an inter-district highway in the region recently.

Though BJP leaders have said the party will wrest power in Tripura, it will be no easy task to beat the incumbent CPI(M)-led Left Front. Despite the attention from the Centre, neither Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar nor his Meghalaya counterpart, Mukul Sangma, of the Congress are unduly worried.

Earlier this week, the Election Commission announced that it was satisfied with poll preparations in Meghalaya.

Beef burden

Earlier this year, prominent BJP leaders in Meghalaya resigned protesting the ban on beef, stressing that beef was part of their culture. BJP leaders moved to restrain cow vigilantes in the State, though reports of attacks elsewhere in the country echoed in the region. It is no acciden t that there is now free sale of beef in the region.

BJP spokesperson R.K. Shivachandra told The Hindu that the party will form the government in the three northeastern States since people welcome the developmental works.

However Congress leaders have countered this with Okram Ibobi Singh, three time Congress Chief Minister of Manipur saying, “The BJP governments at the centre and NE states have not done anything new. All they have done is to change the names of the projects or inaugurate the projects initiated by the Congress governments.”

In Nagaland, the BJP and the Naga People’s Front are coalition partners. The fate of BJP candidates will depend on the Centre resolving the festering demand for unification of all Naga inhabited areas. MLAs from the State have submitted a memorandum to Mr. Modi for a solution to the issue or else a postponement of elections.

Assuring Manipur

Given the ramifications of a possible solution to the Naga issue, the Prime Minister, Home Minister and other senior functionaries have been at pains to assure Manipur that the State government and the people will be taken into confidence before the final agreement and that Manipur’s territory and interest shall not be compromised.

T.N. Haokip, Manipur unit president of the Congress said. “In the March polls we got 28 seats in the 60 member House while BJP got 21. We were never given a chance to form the ministry. BJP which had joined hands with the splinter parties formed the government.”

There is growing fear that the political history may be repeated in the NE states which go to polls early next year.