Delhi Diary: BJP Makes Inroads Into India's Northeast Region

By Shakir Husain Shakir Husain, Bernama’s correspondent in New Delhi shares his take from the Indian sub-continent. NEW DELHI, March 5 (Bernama) -- India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has expanded its dominance to the country's Northeast region by making impressive gains in the latest round of state elections. Considered the champion of the Hindi-speaking region and the religious ideology of Hindutva, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party has won many state polls since it came to power following the national election in 2014. However, winning in the northeastern region where it used to be a marginal player is a remarkable feat for the BJP. The Northeast comprises the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. The election results for Tripura on Saturday showed the BJP and its alliance partners had won comfortably, ending the 25-year reign of the communist government. In Nagaland, the right-wing party and its allies took nearly half the seats and are poised to form the next government with the support of independent legislators. Meghalaya delivered a fractured verdict, with the Congress party emerging as the single largest party with 21 seats, followed by the regional National People’s Party (NPP) with 19 and the BJP winning just two seats. BJP-allied NPP leader Conrad Sangma will form the new government in Meghalaya after he cobbled together a coalition to claim majority support in the legislature. Each of the three states that went to the polls in February has a 60-member assembly. From being an insignificant player in the Northeast's politics, the BJP has come a long way since its emphatic win in the national parliamentary polls nearly four years ago. The BJP and its allies already rule Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, while the Congress is in power in Mizoram. "A new political landscape led by BJP is firmly established in the region now. Good for Northeast, good for India," Kiren Rijiju, a federal minister, said on Saturday. Brinda Karat, an opposition leader blamed the left front's defeat in Tripura on the "unprecedented deployment of money" by the BJP and its Hindu nationalist mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The Northeast, which borders Myanmar, Bangladesh and China, represents about eight per cent of India's land area and is home to four per cent its population of 1.3 billion. It is also the country's heavily diversified region with a multitude of languages, ethnicities and religions. Some parts of the region are also susceptible to communal and ethnic tensions. Christianity is a major religion in Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya, while Muslims have a significant share of population in Assam. Modi and his cabinet colleagues have talked about intensifying economic development in the region with a focus on manufacturing, transportation and agriculture. The BJP government also sees the Northeast as India's bridge to Southeast Asia, and new infrastructure projects are planned to boost connectivity with ASEAN. Some political observers attribute the BJP's good showing in the Northeast to the party's determination to expand its rule. They also point out that the ineptitude of its opponents, especially the Congress, has helped Modi's party. The latest poll performance emboldens the BJP to try to oust opposition parties in other states, including Karnataka in southern India and West Bengal, situated next to the Northeast. "Today we are seeing a true pan-India rise of the BJP. It used to be known as a party of the Hindi belt but that has changed now," party president Amit Shah said. -- BERNAMA