Many Nagas prefer BJP hoping to accelerate development
Our Spl Correspondent
NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 8: Unprecedented success for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Hindutva laboratory, Gujarat, is bound to have its mega impact in national politics.
The ‘Moditva phenomenon’ was at its best in the just concluded polls in Gujarat. Congress did well to wrest power again in Himachal Pradesh. But with a wafer-thin majority Congress will face trouble ensuring stability.
Focus will gradually shift to Northeastern States where elections are due in two Christian-ominated States of Meghalaya and Nagaland and also in another BJP-ruled Tripura, which also accounts for a substantial number of tribal and Christian voters.
The just concluded polls and next year’s elections in 3 Northeastern States and also Mizoram and 3 agrarian States of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and also in Karnataka will set the ball rolling for 2024 general elections,
Jubilant BJP leaders should send a bouquet to Arvind Kejriwal for contesting and campaigning hard in Gujarat. They will also thank Rahul Gandhi for staying away from Gujarat. These might be a combo ~ a delicious recipe for the voters to embrace the Moditva much more enthusiastically preparing the ground for 2024 polls when Hindu voter’s folk hero Namo will try for a hat-trick at the national level.
In Nagaland, doubts persist whether polls will be held on time or it would be the default pension for some players in the corridors of power at Kohima.
But the ensuing polls are more than serious in Meghalaya. In Tripura, which was once a communist fort, the saffron party will hope for an easier contest with rivals Congress and CPI-M marginalised. A new tribal-based party may make a difference but it cannot win more than 20 seats.
In Meghalaya, defection games will start soon in a big way. Three MLAs who resigned could rush to Delhi anytime later this week to embrace BJP.
The BJP’s mega promise is to provide a corruption-free government focused on people’s socio economic development.
The hilly State of nearly 3 million people has 75% Christian population and yet the BJP has plans to garner votes. BJP’s national vice president and in-charge Meghalaya is a Naga veteran, M Chuba Ao. He is confident of a much better show this time as compared to 2-seats win in 2018.
Nalin Kohli then BJP in-charge of Meghalaya is now in-charge of Nagaland and he has famously inked the 20:40 formula pact probably with much enthusiasm. He was pleasing his bosses and helping a new found friend in the hills of Northern Angami. But in Northern Angami II, BJP mandal workers pledge to sweat it out.
The NPP of Conrad Sangma in Meghalaya is faced with anti-incumbency and a series of corruption allegations. Money flows during election time in Meghalaya, ‘some people say’, as the cliché goes about Fox News channel.
The Congress was in power for 15 years till it was ousted in 2018 but the grand old party has lost veterans such as Mukul Sangma to Trinamool and the party base has crumbled too.
In Baptist-majority Nagaland, the BJP shares power in a coalition led by NDPP and does not even mind playing second fiddle.
Christians, who make up 90% of Nagaland’s 1.95 million people, may want to give a pleasant surprise to the BJP. Central Nagaland, especially Mokokchung district, is witnessing a pro-saffron wave despite lacklustre performance by State unit president Temjen Ima Along.
Nagas are at crossroads hence look toward a solution for peace and extortion-free life. Many Nagas see merits in the pro-Hindutva BJP presuming this will accelerate their development.
Congress is nowhere in the battle scene and the NPF is also a victim of its own power-politics shenanigans.
In States where non-Hindus are politically decisive, the BJP always smartly employed a singular political strategy of aligning with regional parties. Things are changing a bit in Meghalaya. But in Mizoram, the saffron party does not mind as long as the Zoramthanga-led MNF continues in office.
In Meghalaya, the BJP is reportedly also working to attract “non-Christian local tribal groups”, who continue to practice age-old indigenous customs and socio-religious practices.
