Polling ends in NE, will BJP’s winning streak stop?

Elections for 24 Lok Sabha seats in seven states in the Northeast concluded, with over 70% turnout reported in five seats in Assam and Tripura where polling was conducted on Tuesday.

Elections for 19 other seats were conducted on April 11 and 18.

Till 7 pm, four seats in Assam—Gauhati, Dhubri, Kokrajhar and Barpeta reported 78.52% voting while 77.28% voters had exercised their franchise in the Tripura West seat till 5 pm.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Rajya Sabha member from Assam since 1991 and his wife Gurcharan Kaur were the attractions in Guwahati, as the duo cast their votes in a polling station around 3 pm.

Singh and Kaur also visited the residence of former Assam chief minister, the late Hiteswar Saikia. Saikia had offered Singh an opportunity to contest for the Rajya Sabha seat in 1991. He was elected again in 2013 and his term will end in June this year.

While the BJP and its allies set a target of at least 20 seats, Congress hopes to break the saffron party’s winning streak in the region since 2014, banking on the strong protests by the indigenous people against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

BJP and its two allies in Assam - Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) - had faced the ire of the indigenous people over the bill in the run-up to the elections. AGP had quit the alliance government while at least seven other allies had stood against the bill.

But the BJP managed to bring AGP back into the alliance just before the polls. BJP fielded its candidates in 10 of 14 seats in Assam and gave three to AGP and one to BPF. Three other allies, National People’s Front in Meghalaya, Mizo National Front in Mizoram and IPFT in Tripura, however, decided to contest separately, mainly due to their stand against the bill.

BJP leader Ram Madhab, however, said they all would be with NDA after the results.

Faced with the ire over the citizenship bill, BJP leaders, particularly Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, have tried to polarization the electorate in the run-up to the election.

He called this election a fight between the indigenous people, represented by the BJP and its allies and the Bangladeshi Muslims, allegedly represented by AIUDF chief Maulana Badruddin Ajmal and the Congress.

The AIUDF had won three Lok Sabha seats in 2014 but fielded only three candidates this time.

Congress had won three seats in Assam in 2014 but it aims to win at least 12 seats this time.

Election observers opine that BJP’s victory would mean success of its polarization politics, mainly in Assam and Tripura and the failure of Congress to cash in on the strong anti-Citizenship bill sentiments in the region.