Modi’s BJP tightens grip after winning two state elections in north-east India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has strengthened the prospect that it may rule every state in India after winning power in two north-eastern states on Saturday.
In Tripura, where the BJP had no seats in the assembly, it won 35 of 59 seats, ending a 25-year reign by the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
In Nagaland, the party won 12 of 59 seats but it will still form the government with its ally, the Naga People’s Front, which won 27 seats.
Only in Meghalaya did the BJP fail, winning two of 59 seats.
But the party’s strong performance in a part of the country that has traditionally been a stronghold for the opposition Left and Congress parties indicates how thorough Mr Modi’s domination of Indian electoral politics has become.
“The BJP today is perhaps the most formidable election machine that this country has witnessed in the last 70 years,” said Yogendra Yadav, a New Delhi political analyst.
The party rules, by itself or with a partner, 21 of 29 states – the highest since Congress was in power in 18 states 25 years ago. This will add momentum as India prepares for parliamentary elections next year.
The north-east has been indifferent to the BJP’s emphasis on Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva. About 90 per cent of Nagaland’s population is Christian.
Tripura is majority Hindu but a third of its population is indigenous tribes. Some of these tribes are Christian, while others practise Hinduism very different to that in the BJP’s heartland of north India.
For a Hindu nationalist party to win over these electorates was surprising, said Pradip Kumar Datta, a professor of political theory at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “It’s a major achievement, no doubt about that.”
The BJP secured this performance, in part, by subsuming Hindutva during campaigns, said Anindya Sarkar, a politics teacher at Tripura University and state polling observer.
“Since last year they’ve been making it clear here that they will not be talking about cow slaughter or try to regulate beef consumption,” Mr Sarkar told The National.
In northern states such as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the BJP has with great success emphasised its stance against slaughtering cattle, which are sacred to Hinduism.
But because the diet in the north-east relies far more on beef, the party chose to downplay the issue, Mr Sarkar said.
Instead, its focus during its campaigns has been on jobs and economic development.
“Tripura has an unemployment rate of around 22 or 23 per cent, one of the highest in the country,” Mr Sarkar said.
This resonated in the tribal districts, where the communist government had streamlined land ownership rights for tribes but had failed to deliver any other reforms. “So they have land but it stopped there,” Mr Sarkar said. “There was no
Hindutva is the very strong basis of the BJP and at some point this is going to lead to a crisis here PRADIP KUMAR DATTA Jawaharlal Nehru University
irrigation, no seed banks, no agricultural loans.”
The people of the north-east, and in particular the youth, “are very aspirational, and Modi came here and promised to create that kind of wealth”.
Mr Datta said that the BJP had been smart in stitching up local alliances. It linked up with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura and the Naga People’s Front in Nagaland.
“These were very intelligent moves,” Mr Datta said.
But while these tactics won the BJP power in the short term, Mr Datta said, they would also lead to increased tension in the long term.
“Hindutva is the very strong basis of the BJP and at some point this is going to lead to a crisis here,” he said.
The party’s Hindu nationalist core is likely to assert itself and to clash with the other local identities of these states, Mr Datta said, even leading to communal riots.
“I don’t know how that will resolve itself except through violence,” he said.