BJP gears up to continue winning run in northeast

By Payal Mehta
New Delhi [India], January 3 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing up for the forthcoming Assembly elections in the northeastern states - Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland - all three of which go to the polls during the first quarter of this year and Mizoram at the end of the year.
"The Prime Minister's focus is simply on the prosperity, progress, and welfare of the people of the region. That is why it's even more important that the continuity of NDA governments in the state along with the Centre happens," a senior Union minister told ANI.
As per the sources, the saffron party may make a pre-poll alliance in Tripura with the existing alliance partner Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT). The party allied with BJP in the 2018 Tripura Assembly election and won 8 seats out of 9 contested seats.
However, the number of seats that the two may contest in the upcoming polls may be firmed up soon. On the possibility of an alliance with Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (Tipra Motha) headed by Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman, a senior leader of BJP told ANI, "We cannot be seen forming an alliance with a unit that is demanding a separate state -Greater Tipuraland' - for indigenous tribes."
In Meghalaya where the BJP is in an alliance with NPP has already announced that they will fight on all the seats and no pre-poll alliance will be made with Chief Minister Conrad Sangma's party.
"We are confident of our good performance given the work that the government led by PM Modi has done at the Centre for the people of the state," another BJP leader said.
In the last Assembly polls, the saffron party which won just 2 out of 60 seats was able to move in swiftly and strike a post-poll arrangement with Sangma to form a government.
Nagaland currently has a 'no opposition' government headed by Nephiu Rio. The NDPP president who is the nine-time Nagaland CM has struck a pre-poll arrangement with BJP with the saffron party to contest 20 out of 60 seats. In 2018 out of 20 seats contested the BJP was able to win 12.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has coined the term 'Ashtalakshmi' for the eight sister states of the northeast has had a special focus on the region.
"No other Prime Minister has visited the North East as much as him. In his tenure as PM he has made over 50 visits to the region," a Union minister told ANI.
Several rounds of visits over the last few years have been undertaken by PM Modi-led central government ministers to the north-eastern states to focus on development right from road infrastructure to urban and rural infrastructure, health infrastructure and transportation infrastructure including taking railways to all the northeastern state capitals.