Why the govt's plan to use the northeast to reach out to Asean might fail

Neither the local population nor the candidates in the upcoming state polls find it salient enough to interest them

Dina Hasao in Assam, Dhalai in Tripura or Kiphire in Nagaland are tiny specks within the geography of the north-east India, riven by recent clashes. For the locals of the seven-sister states of this region, the reasons for the clashes are, however, quite significant though the rest of India may not have heard of them. 

Some of those clashes have to do with the elections to the three state legislatures of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland, due in February. But none have anything to do with the plan of the government of India to use the north east as the base