With the Meghalaya Assembly elections slated for February 27, 2023, let us take a look at the parties that changed the power dynamic in the previous elections, bagging constituencies that were home to other parties back in 2013.
Before getting to the numbers, let us first understand the political scenario of 2018 to help us compare it with 2013 numbers as well as make sense of the stakes for each party in 2023.
In the 2018 Meghalaya Assembly elections, the Indian National Congress (INC) won 28.8 per cent of the total votes (21 seats) followed by National People’s Party (NPP), which bagged 19 seats and 20.8 per cent of the votes.
Despite the INC’s clear majority, NPP turned out to be a game-changer as it formed a state-level alliance with local parties and the BJP, giving rise to the ruling ‘Meghalaya Democratic Alliance.’
However, NPP, the leader of the post-poll alliance in 2018, has declared that it will go solo in this year's polls.
With the NPP contesting alone and the INC and BJP’s intense ongoing campaign, the forthcoming Meghalaya elections have become quite a nail biting affair.
In order to understand the prevalence of the INC and growing prominence of the NPP and the BJP in the state, let us take a look at the constituencies in Meghalaya that the BJP, Congress, and NPP overturned in 2018.
Indian National Congress
In the year 2013, the INC bagged the maximum number of seats in the state (29), with a vote share of 34.8 per cent.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, however, the Congress could only win 21 seats, 10 of which coincided with the ones it had won in the previous election.
Adding to that, in 2018, BJP, NPP and others claimed a majority in 11 out of the total seats that INC had secured back in 2013.
Despite losing a few older seats, however, the grand old party showed its clout in 10 fresh constituencies that they had lost earlier, including Sutnga Saipung (ST), Mawryngkneng (ST), Mawlai (ST), and West Shillong.
Bharatiya Janata Party
In 2013, BJP had no seats in Meghalaya, while in 2018, it got hold of two constituencies and an alliance with the NPP that helped it gain power in the state.
The seats that the BJP secured in 2018 were the Pynthorumkhrah constituency seat, which was held by INC in 2013, and the South Shillong seat, which was earlier occupied by the NCP.
National People’s Party
The NPP claimed 20.8 per cent of the vote share in 2018, winning 19 seats, as opposed to the two seats they had won back in 2013, Songsak and Dadenggre.
Out of the two, the party was able to retain only one seat in 2018: Songsak was taken over by the INC.
Out of the total 19 seats that NPP won in 2018, 11 of them were Congress majority constituencies in 2013.
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