Hanging on to the Northeast thread

In a tight finish, the minuscule numbers from the Northeast could make a difference, says Nitin A. Gokhale

Taken individually, Lok Sabha seats in the seven north-eastern states would not matter for anything in the electoral arithmetic nationally. After all, there are only two Lok Sabha seats each at stake from the states of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura. Their neighbours — Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram — together elect just three Lok Sabha MPs and Assam, the largest state in the region elects just 14 Lok Sabha MPs.

And yet, each of the states has its own problems and peculiarities. For years, the Congress has had a free run in the Northeast, barring a few sporadic challenges from regional parties like the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). Since 1996 however, the BJP has been making steady inroads into the Congress bastions by either making strategic alliances (as in Mizoram and Meghalaya) or taking on the Congress directly as in Assam and Manipur.

Amid the battle of the two big parties, one man is fighting for his political survival. Purno Sangma, the little big man from Tura had everything going for him till he walked out of the Congress to float the NCP with Sharad Pawar. Having now parted ways with Pawar too, Sangma has been forced to fall back upon Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and for the first time in 20 years, he is being seriously challenged by a younger candidate. Mukul M. Sangma, a minister in Meghalaya, is talking about overall development of the Garo Hills while the senior Sangma continues to harp on Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. As if to put Purno Sangma in his place, Sonia held a rally in Tura, her only one outside Assam during her second round of campaigning earlier this week.

But if Sangma’s career hangs in the balance, so do the fortunes of at least two Congress chief ministers — Tarun Gogoi of Assam and O. Ibobi Singh of Manipur. Gogoi has an unenviable task of retaining 10 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Although the Congress knows it can depend upon its two tested vote banks — Muslims and tea-garden labourers — a rapidly improving BJP is catching up fast. The Congress has however been caught on the wrong foot following the Election Commission’s directive that all voters have to produced any one of the 14 specified documents like driving license, voter ID card, passport, ration card etc. as proof of identity during voting. A majority of Congress’ minority voters, who live on the temporary islands in the Brahmaputra do not possess any of these documents. “We feel that the poll panel directive is impractical in the case of Assam,” senior Congress MP Silvius Condopan says. That the Congress know it has a fight on its hands in Assam is evident from the fact that Sonia Gandhi spent two full days in the state, a month after she addressed a rally in Guwahati on March 9.

In Manipur the diktat by the outlawed United National Liberation Front (UNLF), Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) and Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF), banning all election related activities in the state has dampened the spirit of political parties. The worried administration has asked the Election Commission to provide at least 200 companies of para-military forces to conduct the elections but so far it has been given only 79 companies. “We will have to ask for postponement of the polls if adequate forces are not placed at our disposal,” says chief minister Ibobi Singh, whose administration has been increasingly marginalised by rampaging insurgent groups.

If the Congress is in trouble in Assam and Manipur, BJP’s government in Arunachal Pradesh is also at loggerheads with the All Arunachal Pradesh Students Union (AAPSU) over the issue of the Chakma-Hajong refugees. The AAPSU had called for a poll boycott protesting against the Election Commission’s order on inclusion of Chakma-Hajong refugees in the state electoral rolls. These refugees, original inhabitants of East Pakistan, have been living in Arunachal Pradesh since 1964 but were never included in the electoral rolls.

In Nagaland, Tripura and Mizoram, the issues are local in nature although the progress of truce and negotiations between the Centre and the banned National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) remains a matter of interest for the rest of the Northeast. The Issac-Muivah faction of the NSCN would be hoping for continuity at the Centre for its own benefit. In Tripura, the Left Front hold on the two Lok Sabha seats remains unchallenged and therefore the excitement of a contest is missing in the state.

Overall, the biggest interest in elections to 23 Lok Sabha seats from the Northeast would be the final tally of the Congress and the BJP. In a tight finish nationally, any seats won in the region could come in very handy for both the parties.