Message from Northeast: Assembly results herald major shifts in politics

From sweeping the polls in Tripura to being in the driver’s seat in Nagaland and being the kingmaker in Meghalaya, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has had an even more rousing start to 2018 than its landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh at the beginning of 2017. Even though the three states contribute just five Lok Sabha seats, yet the political message is priceless for the BJP. Together with recent victories in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Manipur, the BJP has ripped apart the tag of being just a North-India party, as it now dominates the seven sister states of the Northeast. The results will salve the BJP’s wounds from recent electoral setbacks — an underwhelming victory in Gujarat and a series of by-election losses in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, two states that go to polls later in the year. Equally, the BJP’s performance will have a salutary effect on the party cadre’s morale as it braces for a busy election season that will culminate with the general elections in about a year’s time.

The results in Tripura best exemplify the growing notion that the BJP is the go-to party for all those voters — often overruling longstanding caste or creed affiliations, or indeed, age and gender considerations — who are unhappy with the status quo in their respective states. The state saw the first direct ideological fight between the centre-right BJP and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which led the Left Front government there for the last 25 years. The BJP, which had less than 2 per cent vote share five years ago, wiped the floor with both the Left and the principal Opposition party in the state, the Congress, by achieving over 43 per cent vote share as well as a comfortable majority by itself. While the Left managed to still receive a substantial vote share, it was reduced to insignificance in terms of seats, while the Congress drew a blank, tamely surrendering both its key leaders and its vote share to the BJP. 

The results have varying implications for different political parties. The starkest message is, of course, for the Left parties. While their growing marginalisation — Kerala is the only state ruled by the Left — dilutes the plurality of India’s democratic discourse, yet the truth is there is a big question mark on the modern-day viability of their economic policies. At a crushing 20 per cent, Tripura suffers from the highest unemployment rate in the country. Without adequate policy response, it is only a matter of time that the Indian youth rules out the Left altogether. For the Congress, the result is a reminder that politics is 24x7. Its disinterest not only dents the image of its president Rahul Gandhi (whose absence raises suspicions of the general being shielded by the soldiers instead of the other way round) but also questions its ability and commitment to compete toe-to-toe with the BJP. On the whole, it appears that non-BJP parties will hang separately if they do not hang together, although it is anyone’s guess how effective a formal grand alliance will be against the BJP in 2019. For its part, the BJP, which already rules 70 per cent of India, is still hungry for more — namely, Kerala, West Bengal, Odisha and Karnataka. But with each victory comes a growing responsibility to come through with its electoral promises.