In Nagaland, as NPF and Congress fail to get going, smaller parties step up

The field in Nagaland this time was a crowded one with 13 parties and 19 Independent candidates in the fray. The list of parties with wins is almost as varied. Apart from the BJP, the NDPP and the NPF, five other parties and four Independent candidates registered wins.

Among these, the most impressive performance has been by Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which won seven of the 12 seats it contested, receiving 9.56 per cent of the vote share. This was not the NCP’s first outing in Nagaland. In 2018, it did not win any of the six seats it contested and received 1.06 per cent of the votes cast. In 2013, it won four constituencies. The Bihar-based Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas (LJP-RV) of Chirag Paswan and the Ramdas Athawale-led Republican Party of India-Athawale (RPI-A) — first-time entrants to Nagaland electoral politics — won two seats each while four Independents won.

Like many other parties, the NCP had welcomed sitting MLAs denied tickets by their parties. Among its seven winners, Picto who defeated the BJP’s Kahuli Sema will be representing Atoizu in the Assembly for a third consecutive term. While he won on an NPF ticket in the last election, he was one of the 21 MLAs who crossed over to the NDPP in 2021. He joined the NCP when the NDPP denied him a ticket. Namri Namching who won from Tenning as an NCP candidate had been elected from the constituency on an NPF ticket in 2013.

Several other NCP winners are also experienced electioneers. For instance, Mankhao Konyak from Mon Town, Y M Humtsoe from Wokha and P Longon from Noklak were all runners-up in their respective constituencies in 2018.

The LJP (RV) had tried to bank on past wins by fielding five incumbent MLAs denied tickets by their former parties. However, while none of these candidates won, both its winners — Sukhato Sema from Pughoboto and Naiba Konyak from Tobu — had come second in their respective seats in 2018. While the BJP had insisted that the only alliance in place in Nagaland was that between it and the NDPP, the central leaders of both the LJP (RV) and the RPI (A) pledged their support to the BJP ahead of counting.

Among the National People’s Party’s (NPP) five winners, Nuklutoshi is a two-time MLA from Arkalong. Significantly, many of these winners — including Nuklutoshi, Sukhato Sema and Naiba Konyak — are among a large number of candidates who flocked to the BJP in the recent past, anticipating tickets from the party and loudly protested the 40:20 seat-sharing formula the BJP struck with the NDPP. Hoping to be accommodated by the BJP, they were pushing for its share to be raised to 30 seats. When that did not happen and it became clear they would not be fielded by the BJP, they sought tickets from other parties.