The BJP successfully navigated the difficult terrain of the Northeast to retain three governments in the region. More than the numbers game, its the perception battle which the saffron party has been able to win, as it secured Tripura, an erstwhile Left bastion, again, while also creating a foothold in Nagaland and Meghalaya where it faced opposition for being an outsider.
“BJP was called bania party, and a party of the middle class; but we have broken those myths. We saw in the Gujarat elections how we got big success in the tribal areas. We were called anti-minority, but brothers from Goa broke that myth too. Now the Northeastern states have demolished this narrative,” Modi said during the victory speech at the party headquarters in Delhi.
Whenever the party was hit by anti-incumbency, it had tried to cultivate new constituencies, be it the Dalits, women, or minorities. The party follows it up with regular visits of senior leaders, including Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and party president J.P. Nadda, cabinet ministers, and other top leaders to keep the channels of communication open with the local population. The BJP's experiment to change the chief minister as it did in Tripura paid off once again, as BJP won 32 seats, though its vote share dropped a bit. The party had earlier changed the chief ministers in Gujarat and Uttarakhand where it won the elections. The same experiment will be tested when Karnataka goes to polls next month.
What has also worked well in the BJP’s favour is its aggressive wooing of the local communities and celebrating the regional identities to build trust. The rise of Tipra Motha Party, a two-year-old party dedicated to the tribals, which won 13 seats against CPI(M)-Congress combine of 14. Formed by former Congressman Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma the party did well in the tribal areas, by extolling the sub-national sentiment, and became the difference for the Left and Congress alliance’s loss. This rise of community-based parties shows that identity politics plays a big role in the Northeastern states, and the parties who form social alliances and are not shy to woo them do well, a strategy missing from the grand old party’s repertoire.
In Meghalaya and Nagaland, the BJP will be a junior partner in the coalition government, showing it was here to stay, and in terms of numbers and perception, its governments run in all the Northeastern states.
In Nagaland, it won 12 seats, same as last time, increasing its vote share by 3.5 per cent, becoming the second largest party. In Meghalaya, the BJP had gone alone to contest all the seats, but could win only two seats, the same number of seats it won last time, despite calls to shun it for being anti-minority. The BJP state president went public to state that he was never asked to give up eating beef by his party – a claim that would have invited punitive action in the Hindi heartland.
Besides, the BJP which has been winning over leaders of other parties has created a strong foothold in the Northeastern states, by keeping its organisational machinery well-oiled. The entry of Himanta Biswa Sarma into the saffron camp has been given a major fillip to BJP's prospects in the Northeast.
The BJP's strong focus on the delivery of Central government schemes, and then wooing those beneficiaries is the game plan used by the party all over the country with much success. The BJP’s performance is an indicator that it will continue to woo Christian minorities in other states like Kerala where they have a significant electoral presence.
Of the nine assembly polls scheduled this year, the BJP has won the first round of three states. The focus will now shift to the two southern states – Karnataka and Telangana - and three Hindi-speaking states—Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh—and Mizoram in the Northeast.
