New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be able to form a government on its own in Manipur, marking the first full-fledged BJP government in the northeastern border state.
The saffron party needed to win 31 of the 60 seats on its own. It has won 32.
The Congress has won 5, the National People’s Party in 7, the Janata Dal (United) in 6 and the Naga Peoples Front in five. Independent candidates are leading in three seats.
Chief minister N. Biren Singh emerged victorious in the Heingang constituency.
In the 2017 elections, the BJP, even while fighting the Okram Ibobi Singh-led Congress government facing three-term incumbency, with all its might could pocket only 21 seats. The Congress, with 28 seats, came out to be the single-largest party.
Still, like in most smaller states, particularly in the Northeast, the party in power at the Centre almost always holds more sway than the one in the opposition. It is particularly true of the north-eastern states as they are considerably dependent on central funds. No wonder then, in Manipur too, BJP could push its way through to form a government by sewing up an alliance with the Naga People’s Front (NPF) and the National People’s Party (NPP). It formed the coalition government led by former Congress hand N. Biren Singh as the chief minister.
If this March 10 the BJP drives home a simple majority as predicted by the exit polls, the one to come out strongest from it would be Biren Singh. In his first term, Singh had faced serious intra-party and inter-party rebellion, so much so that the local NPP leaders in cahoots with the BJP rebels and a few Congress MLAs nearly toppled the Biren Singh government in 2020. In the run-up to the assembly polls, the backing he has enjoyed from the national leadership, particularly from the top leader Amit Shah, came out in the open with the union home minister announcing during a meeting in Imphal that the party would go to polls in Manipur under Singh’s leadership.
The BJP is contesting all the 60 seats in the state while its allies in the government – the NPF and the NPP and the Janata Dal (United) – are not part of a pre-poll alliance with it, like they were not in the last assembly polls. The Congress has tied up with the Left parties for the elections. Keeping winnability in mind, the BJP has given party tickets to a host of former Congress leaders switching over to it, prominently Konthoujam Govindas, former Congress chief and six-time MLA (Bishnupur), Ibobi Singh’s nephew Okram Henry (Wangkhei) and Rajkumar Imo Singh (Sagolband) who is also the son in law of chief minister N. Biren Singh. The Wangkhei contest is particularly interesting as Henry was given the BJP ticket by rejecting senior party leader Y. Erabot Singh. Singh is contesting the polls from the constituency as an NPP candidate.
The BJP has campaigned extensively in the Thoubal district, the bastion of the Congress stalwart Ibobi Singh. The district has six constituencies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah had held mega rallies at the district, hoping to corner those constituencies in the valley area of the state.
While the party has stacked up odds against the former Congress chief minister’s bastion, at Heingang, the home constituency of Biren Singh, he is being challenged by a former BJP MLA Pangeijam Saratchandra Singh. He had joined the Congress as Biren Singh had overlooked him in spite of being a sitting MLA.
While BJP is hoping to pocket a number of seats in the valley areas, it is wary of pulling off success in the hill areas, particularly in the Naga-dominated 11 constituencies. These constituencies have traditionally been voting either for the Congress or for the NPF. In the 2017 polls, NPF had won four seats while four had gone to the Congress.
In the Kuki-dominated Churachandpur district though, BJP is said to be ahead of the Congress as it has been successful in getting the support of the armed groups under suspension of operation.
While in the 2017 polls, all eyes were on peace activist Irom Sharmila contesting the polls form a newly formed regional party, this time around, considerable attention has been drawn by yet another woman candidate, Th. Brinda. A former Manipur state police officer who had shot to fame by leading the state government’s anti-drug drive, Brinda is contesting from Yaiskul as a JD(U) candidate. She is facing the sitting MLA Th. Satyabrata Singh from the BJP.
Yet another constituency under media glare is Ukhrul, where there is a three-corner fight between the sitting Congress MLA Alfred Kanngam, former national footballer and BJP candidate Somatai Shaiza and former North East Council chief and NPF candidate Ram Muivah. Ukhrul is the home district of the NSCN (I-M) supremo Th. Muivah.