Why The BJP Needs The Northeast?

Poll-bound Nagaland and Meghalaya hold the key to the BJP accomplishing its Mission Northeast and securing ground for the Lok Sabha battle next year

- Kaushik Deka

In December 2014, while addressing the crowd at Kisama, the site of the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in English, departing from his practice of speak ing in Hindi, even during foreign visits. He even asked the gathering to join him in chanting the Naga nationalist slogan ‘Kuknalim’, meaning ‘victory to Nagalim’. For the rest of the country, Modi’s preferred slogan is ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.

Many saw this deviation as an attempt to reach out to the secessionists in the state, which has witnessed several insurgencies since India’s independence. Partly true, but the larger goal was to make the BJP acceptable as a party of the natives in Nagaland. It was just one chapter in the larger narrative of the BJP’s mission for the Northeast. The party is ready to make all adjustments for it—Modi dumped Hindi and Bharat Mata and the BJP abandoned its ‘beef politics’ in the region.

It’s still a tall order for the BJP. In the 2013 elections to the 60-member Meghalaya assembly, BJP candidates lost their security deposits in the 13 seats the party contested, securing only 1.27 per cent votes. A year later, it failed to win either of the two Lok Sabha seats though its vote share increased to 9.16 per cent.

In Nagaland, the BJP’s performance in the 2013 assembly elections was marginally better. It won one of the 11 seats it contested in the 60-member house, securing 1.75 per cent votes—and eight of its candidates lost their deposits. In the Lok Sabha elections, the party left the lone seat to then ally Naga People’s Front (NPF). Yet, five years later, the BJP is hoping to be in government in both the Christian-dominated states—Nagaland has an 88 per cent Christian population, in Meghalaya it’s 75 per cent.