Along Longkumer
Consulting Editor
Beating anti-incumbency and a spirited attempt of the Indian National Congress (INC) to turn the tide in its favour, the ruling Naga People’s Front (NPF) under Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio has returned to power for the third consecutive time in an emphatic win which saw the NPF get an absolute majority of 38 seats out of the total 59 seats where elections were held. The NPF which bagged 26 seats in the last Assembly election improved its tally by 12.
The results for all the 59 seats were declared by Thursday evening. The Congress in Nagaland was decimated in a humiliating defeat winning only 8 seats of the 57 seats it contested. The Congress tally is 15 less than the 23 seats the party won in the 2008 election. This is the worst election result for the Congress party in Nagaland.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won 4 seats while the BJP and JD (U), pre-poll alliance partner of the NPF, won one seat each taking the tally of the DAN alliance to 40 seats, which is a comfortable two-thirds majority for Rio to enter his third term in office. Independents won in 7 seats. However they will not play any major role in formation of the next government. Elections to one seat Tuensang Sadar—I had to be countermanded due to the sudden demise of the then sitting Congress MLA P. Chuba Chang.
According to the Morung Express analysis of the poll results, while the NPF was expected to sweep its stronghold of Kohima district, where it won 7 of the 8 seats, the result that made a decisive impact this time around was the big win that the NPF registered across Eastern Nagaland. Of the 19 seats in the fray in this region, the NPF did a coup of sorts by capturing 13 valuable seats—6 from Mon district (out of 9 seats), 4 from Tuensang District (out of 6 seats), 2 from Kiphire district (out of 2 seats) and 1 from Longleng District (out of 2 seats). The main Opposition Congress on the other hand has been wiped out from its erstwhile stronghold of Tuensang, Longleng and Kiphire Districts while it managed only one seat in Mon district.
The big win for the NPF was also driven by the regional party making further inroads into traditional Congress bastion of Mokokchung, Dimapur and Zunheboto Districts. Out of the ten seats in Mokokchung, the NPF won 5 while the Congress was left with just 3 seats with Independents winning the other 2 seats. In Dimapur, where the Congress had swept the district in the last elections, this time, the NPF won in 2 seats out of 5. Similarly in Zunheboto District, out of 6 seats, the NPF won in 3 seats.
The growing tally of the NPF was further boosted by the clean sweep it achieved in its traditional stronghold of Phek and Peren Districts, which together accounts from 7 seats. The NPF won all five seats in Phek and the 2 seats in Peren.
The story of the Congress party, in contrast to the NPF’s emphatic win, was that of a crushing defeat, one that will demoralize the rank and file of party workers. The once powerful Congress has been wiped out in seven of the eleven districts of Nagaland, where the party has drawn a blank. These are Kohima, Peren, Phek, Wokha, Tuensang, Longleng and Kiphire. Even in Mon district, once its bastion, the party could manage just one out of the 9 seats. In the last Assembly Elections, the Congress had won 4 seats each in Mon and Tuensang districts.
