Assembly Election Results 2023: Why BJP’s footprint is growing in the Northeast

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s growing footprint in the Northeast is intriguing, especially considering that prior to 2018, the saffron party was an insignificant player in the region.

The BJP’s track record in the region only goes to show that for political parties to enjoy success, they have to be in it for the long haul.

In the last few years, barring Mizoram and Sikkim, the BJP has either been in power on their own — Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Tripura — or in alliance with regional parties — Meghalaya and Nagaland.

In the 2023 assembly elections, the BJP was the “the man of the series”, bagging a majority in Tripura, and crossing the majority mark with its leading alliance partner in Nagaland. While in Meghalaya, no party has been able to cross the majority mark, the National People’s Party and the BJP combined are close to the majority mark.

What is significant here is that both Meghalaya and Nagaland are Christian-majority states with almost 90 per cent Christian populations. Despite this, the Hindu nationalist party has been able to maintain its position and its alliance with the NPEP and the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party in Meghalaya and Tripura respectively have been able to earn a greater vote share compared to the previous election.

In Meghalaya, while the NPEP and the BJP contested the assembly elections separately, both parties are part of the North Eastern Democratic Alliance and were part of the incumbent government.

The BJP in numbers
The BJP had less than two per cent votes in the 2013 assembly elections in Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Tripura. However, in 2018, the party’s vote share rose to ten per cent in Meghalaya, 15 per cent in Nagaland, and 44 per cent in Tripura. Five years later, in the 2023 assembly election in these states, the BJP has almost maintained its vote share in Meghalaya, gained four per cent votes in Nagaland, and lost five per cent votes in Tripura but retained power by getting the majority alone.

The reasons behind BJP’s success
There are three major reasons behind the success of the BJP: development & welfare schemes, demographics, and of course, the “Modi Magic”.

Development work and social welfare programmes seem to be major factors behind the BJP’s massive support base in the region. In all three states, most respondents of the India Today-Axis My India survey said that they voted for their favourite party for development. A significant number of respondents in all three states also said that they voted for the party under whose reign they reaped more benefits from government schemes.

Remember, in all three states, the BJP was in power either alone or in alliance with a regional party. This trend was also observed in Assam, where voters supported the BJP because of its development work and welfare schemes, especially the distribution of free ration.

In all three states, young voters and women’s support for the BJP is higher than for the other parties.

In Tripura, nearly half of the women voters supported the BJP alliance as per the India Today-Axis My India survey. In fact, the BJP alliance got more support from women voters (49 per cent) than men (41 per cent). What’s noteworthy is that 19 per cent more women supported the BJP alliance than the Left-Congress alliance. This gap was just seven per cent among men.

In Nagaland, women’s support for the NDPP-BJP alliance was 47 per cent, 33 per cent more than its main opponent, the Naga People’s Front.

The third major factor behind the BJP’s success, not just in the Northeast but in other states as well, is “Modi Magic”. Not just his oratory skill and popularity, but Modi (and Amit Shah) have given much-needed organisational strength to the party in the Northeast. Both have given the power to Himanta Biswa Sarma to lead the NEDA, and as a result, the BJP is in power in six out of the eight northeastern states.

Additionally, the Modi-led BJP has been able to change the political discourse. With increasing infrastructural investments in roads etc., the BJP has been able to widen its support base in states where Hindus are in the minority.