With setbacks in four states, NDA unravels in the Northeast

The BJP’s regional partners have lost all the seats that they contested in the Northeast except in Assam, meaning that apart from Arunachal Pradesh, the NDA has lost its hold in all other tribal-majority hill states in the region.

The Congress and non-NDA regional parties have won both seats in Meghalaya and Manipur, and the lone seats in Nagaland and Mizoram. This will result in a considerable change in the power map of the region. In 2019, both seats in Arunachal Pradesh had been won by the BJP; the lone Nagaland seat had been won by NDA partner Nationalist Democratic People’s Party; the lone Mizoram seat had been won by NDA partner Mizo National Front; the Tura set in Meghalaya had been won by NDA partner National People’s Party; the Shillong seat in Meghalaya had been won by the Congress; the Inner Manipur seat had been won by the BJP; and the Outer Manipur seat by NDA partner Naga People’s Front.

This time around as well, the NDA had consolidated its alliances in the region. Apart from Mizoram, where the BJP and the MNF – which have a fraying relationship – both contested, the NDA partners consolidated in all other seats. This includes the NPP contesting from both Meghalaya seats, the NDPP in Nagaland, the BJP in Arunachal Pradesh, the NPF in the Outer Manipur seat, and the BJP in the Inner Manipur seat.

Both seats in Manipur have been lost by the NDA, ostensibly in a wave of resentment against the handling of the ongoing ethnic crisis in the state, with the Congress winning both. The alliance’s reversals in the other seats are major upsets and signal a change in the sentiment in the region with the emergence of new regional forces and the Congress gaining significant ground.

In Meghalaya’s Shillong seat, the recently