Oken Jeet Sandham
Many thought BJP would not be able to progress as a political party in Nagaland because of its Hindutva characteristics. Nagaland is dubbed as Christian State and over 90% of their populations are Christian.
Many lampooned BJP when it set up 38 candidates to fight the general elections in 2003. But, they broke the myth by storming the electoral political theatre by winning seven seats. Their stunning electoral performance surprised not just the people and the political circles in the State but the people in the rest of the country and the BJP stalwarts at the Center. Of course, the BJP-led NDA Government headed by abled and dynamic leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee was there at the Center at that time.
The fact is all the non-Congress political parties came together to fight against the powerful Congress regime of SC Jamir in the State then.
Mention may be made that on the eve of the general elections in 2003, convener of NDA, George Fernandez along with a host of non-Congress national political party leaders including PA Sangma came to Kohima to fire up political campaign against Jamir’s Congress regime. At the rally, Fernandez released a Common Minimum Program (CMP) booklet that would be a basis to run a coalition government in the event that the Congress failed to return to power in Nagaland.
The presence of these national political leaders at the election rally had virtually boosted the morale of the fledgling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) partners, though there was no pre-poll alliance among them.
Ten political parties - AITC, BJP, INC, JD (U), NCP, NDM, NLDP, NPF, RLD, and SAP – contested the general elections in 2003.
Congress won 21 seats, followed by 19 seats by NPF, 7 seats by BJP, 5 seats by NDM, 3 seats by JD (U), and 1 seat by SAP. Independents won 4 seats.
In the post-poll DAN, BJP not just became the second-largest party after NPF but they became a key player in the formation of the non-Congress government in the State.
Neiphiu Rio, who won from the Northern Angami-II in NPF ticket was chosen as leader of DAN Legislature Party and ultimately appointed as DAN Chief Minister.
All the BJP MLAs except Dr. Hokishe Sema and Torechu were appointed Ministers. Dr. Sema was, however, made as DAN Chairman, though he was elected as Leader of BJP Legislature Party, Nagaland (BJPLPN). As former Chief Minister of Nagaland and ex-Governor of Himachal Pradesh, he would not, as expected, serve as Minister under Rio Government.
Rio’s major political battle was to implement the downsizing of his Ministry that would come into force in July 2004.
The split and defection started. Seven Congress MLAs came out from their 21-member-legislature-group and formed a Nagaland Congress (NC) only to merge with the ruling NPF. Legislators of other political parties followed the suit. By the end of 2003, the number of NPF legislators had crossed a simple majority qualifying to form the Government on their own.
Surprisingly, BJP legislators remained unmoved by the chain of defections. They remained like a rock.
But when the downsizing of Ministry came into effect, only Dr. TM Lotha and Imtilemba Sangtam were retained as Ministers.
BJP’s downfall just started with the general elections in 2008. MC Konyak and Y Patton were the only candidates who won. Interestingly, their two sitting Ministers, Dr. Lotha and Sangtam failed to come back.
But the party suffered a major setback when Konyak and Patton merged with NPF. Following this development, many influential party leaders and ex-legislators joined NPF and other non-BJP parties, further weakening the party position in the State.
On the other hand, the meteoric rise of Rio’s political acumen reached the top. Their NPF MPs extended support to the UPA-I and II at the Center, forcing BJP leaders in Nagaland to question the morality of such support when they were part of NDA.
BJP’s continuous decline of electoral performance was seen when their candidate, Paiwang Konyak, was the only one who won in the general elections in 2013.
Rio left the State politics in 2014 and became an NPF Member of Parliament (MP). He came back to State politics only to join the newly floated political party, NDPP, in 2018 before completing his tenure as MP. He could foresee the importance of BJP in fighting the general elections together in 2018. He quickly entered into a seat-sharing pact with them. NDPP would fight 40 seats while BJP would fight 20 seats. This seat-sharing arrangement had, actually, thwarted BJP from becoming a DAN partner again.
The seat-sharing had given BJP the edge over other parties and in fact, their electoral performance in the general elections in 2018 had exceeded their performance in 2003. Ruling NPF won 26 seats, short of 5 seats to become a simple majority.
BJP won 12 seats while its partner, NDPP won 18 seats. NPP won 2 seats followed by 1 seat by JD (U) and 1 seat by Independent. They all joined the NDPP-BJP-led PDA government led by Rio. Patton, who won in BJP ticket, was appointed as Deputy Chief Minister.
Significantly, BJP got 6 Ministers including Deputy CM, NDPP got 4 Ministers including Chief Minister while 1 Minister each went to JD (U) and Independent MLAs.
All have been watching how BJP Ministers, legislators, and party workers are working in the State whether they will be able to repeat their 2018 electoral performance or more than that in the future.
The party has a young and dynamic President, Temjen Imna Along, who is also a Minister. The Central BJP leaders have been closely watching his activities as party chief and he seems to be in their good book. Major overhaul in the party organizational set-up could be seen after he took over the party mantle. Many political pundits and leaders from other parties have been closely monitoring his style of handling the party affairs.
In recent by-election to 60 Pungro-Kiphire Assembly constituency, their candidate failed to win. The seat became vacant following the death of NPF legislator, Torechu. Many thought it would be easy sailing for their BJP candidate as NPF did not set up its candidate while NDPP stayed away honoring their 2018 seat-sharing dharma. Independent won the seat.
The party’s failure to capture the seat has also indicated everything is not going well in the party. Yet, this will only make them wiser and advanced for future political and electoral battles that will be more crucial than ever. It is a “Rise and Fall, Then Rise and Walk” of BJP in Nagaland as of now.
Anything can happen even before the next general elections. No one knows whether the Seat-Sharing Dharma will exist in the next general elections. No one can predict in politics.
