BJP demolishes Left citadel in Tripura, certain to be part of govt. in Nagaland

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Riding the crest of a Modi wave, the Bharatiya Janata Party has demolished the communist citadel of Tripura, winning a two-third majority with ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura and ending 25 years of uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front. The saffron party, which did not have even a single councillor in all of Tripura, had secured less than two per cent votes in the 2013 polls.

In Nagaland, though the BJP-Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party alliance failed to secure a majority with the state throwing up a hung assembly, the party’s participation in the future government looks certain. The ruling Naga People’s Front, which emerged as the single largest party, extended invitation to the BJP join the new dispensation, though the BJP-NDPP combine may be able to form a government with help from smaller parties like NPP, Janata Dal-United and an independent.

Meghalaya too gave a fractured verdict with the ruling Congress as the single largest party with 21 seats, nine short of a simple majority. All three states have 60-member assemblies but polling was held for 59 seats each due to various reasons “It is a journey from no one to number won, from ‘shoonya to shikhar’ (zero to top),” a jubilant Prime Minister Narendra Modi said addressing BJP workers at the newly constructed party headquarters in the national capital referring to the giant leap of the party in the Northeast. The BJP is already in power in Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.

In a series of tweets on the outcome of assembly polls, Modi said the victory of the BJP in Tripura was not ordinary. “This journey from ‘Shunya’ to ‘Shikhar’ (zero to the top) has been made possible due to a solid development agenda and the strength of our organisation. I bow to every BJP karyakarta for working assiduously on the ground for years,” the prime minister said.