Politics is ruthless and more so when issues involved are emotive
NDPP, other NDA partners in northeast pay heavy price for befriending BJP
Prime Minister Narendra Modi suffered a setback when the results of the national election came out on June 4 as his pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to secure an overall majority of its own for the first time in a decade.
However, Modi will serve a third term as prime minister, heading the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coalition that has comfortably won the required simple majority in the 543-seat lower house of the Indian parliament. But he must now depend on the alliance partners to form and smoothly run a government.
A resurgent opposition led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and the I.N.D.I.A. or Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, which he stitched together with other Modi rivals, clearly put paid to the BJP’s ambition of winning “400-plus” seats.
For India’s ruling party, it turned out to be a ‘win some, lose some’ election across the country, especially in the Christian-dominated northeastern states, where it got humbled as people voted against its anti-minority policies.
Nowhere was this more evident than in strife-torn Manipur, where tribal Christians and their institutions, including churches, have been singled out and attacked since May 3 last year.
The sectarian conflict has killed over 220 and displaced more than 50,000 people, the majority of them Christians. Nearly 350 places of worship, including churches, have been damaged.
In the Outer Manipur constituency, dominated by Christian Naga and Kuki tribals, Alfred K. Arthur of Congress defeated Kachui Timothy Zimik of the Nagaland People’s Front, a BJP ally.
Surprisingly, the BJP also slipped in the Hindu Meitei-dominated Inner Manipur constituency, where Angomcha Bimol Akoijam of the Congress won against Basanta Kumar, a minister in the state government.
The failure of the BJP government led by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh to end the bloody ethnic violence between Hindu Meiteis and Christian Kuki-Zo communities appears to have hit the BJP’s reputation hard.
Hindus make up more than 51 percent, while tribal Christians are nearly 41 percent of Manipur’s 2.3 million people.
At the height of the clashes, there was a demand to remove Singh. But Federal Home Minister Amit Shah categorically rejected it. “We will not remove him; he is cooperating with the Centre [federal government],” Shah told the lower house of parliament in August.
Modi has repeatedly described India as the “Mother of Democracy.” This claim came true, much to his chagrin, in the northeastern states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Mizoram, where Christianity is the largest religion.
It was as if the voters in these states wanted to punish the BJP and its mother organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is known for its anti-Christian ideology and policies.
Not only did the BJP suffer a setback, but even the state parties claiming to represent the linguistic, ethnic, and religious (read Christian) aspirations of tribal people had to pay the price for being friendly to the pro-Hindu party.
In Nagaland, the National Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), led by Christian Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, suffered the consequences when Congress candidate Supongmeren Jamir defeated his party nominee Chumben Murry.
The Congress has not been in power in any of the eight states in the northeast region since 2018. It did not have a single member in the Nagaland state legislature for two consecutive terms. But that did not prevent Jamir’s win.
“It is an unexpected outcome... People were angry with the BJP, and they punished the NDPP,” remarked a senior Nagaland-based politician who did not want to be named.
“The Congress, which does not have adequate organizational strength, got rewarded,” he said.
The grapevine has it that even the Congress party did not take its prospects in the election seriously. Jamir, a former leader of the Naga Students’ Federation and Congress’ state president, was fielded because nobody else volunteered for the task.
A former chief minister was urged to contest, but he was reluctant. In the end, Jamir had to accept the challenge.
“I am grateful to God and the people of Nagaland,” Jamir said after his surprise win.
Analysts believe it was “the hand of God” or “divine intervention” that worked to tilt the scales in the polls across the Christian-dominated states.
If true, this invisible hand, allegedly of the Church, did not even spare the tribal Christian candidates who supported the BJP.
In Christian-majority Meghalaya, the Conrad Sangma-led National People's Party (NPP), which has the BJP as an alliance partner, suffered from people's anguish in the state's only two parliamentary constituencies.
Chief Minister Conrad's sister and sitting MP Agatha Sangma lost to Saleng A Sangma of Congress by more than 155,000 votes in the Tura constituency.
The father of Agatha and Conrad, the late P. A. Sangma was considered the tallest Christian leader from the northeast, who rose to become a federal minister and speaker of the Indian Parliament.
In the prestigious Shillong seat based in Meghalaya's capital, Mazel Ampareen Lyngdoh of the Sangma's party came a poor third behind the winner, Ricky Andrew Syngkon of the newly floated Voice of the People Party, and the runner-up, sitting Congress MP Vincent Pala.
Lyngdoh is the health minister in the Sangma ministry, but that was of little help in the face of voters’ discontent over the chief minister’s decision to welcome BJP support for his party candidates.
In Mizoram, the ruling Zoram People's Movement candidate, Richard Vanlalhmangaiha, won the seat. He defeated K. Vanlanvena of the Mizo National Front, a BJP ally that lost power in the November state polls.
The Mizo tribal people share an ethnic bond with the Kukis of Manipur. The ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur appears to have had an impact on the parliamentary polls as well.
Analysts say the targeting of Kuki-Zo Christians and the burning of churches in Manipur has done damage to both the BJP and its allies across these states.
The BJP’s “excessive obsession” with retaining Singh in Manipur only added to the seething anger among Christian voters.
Perhaps it's time to examine what went wrong because Modi and his BJP believe they are “good readers of the people’s pulse.”
The BJP’s only consolation this time was in Hindu-majority Assam and Tripura states, as well as Arunachal Pradesh, where Christians make up around 30 percent of the population. It equaled its tally of 2019 in these states.
In Assam, the largest state in the northeast region, the BJP won nine seats against the Congress’ three while one seat each went to two regional parties.
The BJP government in Assam had lately piloted the controversial Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, 2024, which had alarmed Naga Christian legislators within the party.
The Nagaland Legislative Assembly, cutting across political lines, had expressed concern over the new legislation's attempt to make healing practices a crime.
Nagaland Deputy Chief Minister T R Zeliang had said it would be the duty of Christians to stand up for their faith and beliefs, particularly at a time when their very existence was being threatened.
Christian leaders pointed out that the Right to Freedom of Religion was enshrined in the Indian Constitution, which upheld the principle of secularism.
But these protests had little impact in Assam, or Arunachal Pradesh where a Christian group had declared support for Congress candidates in the national poll.
In an April 3 circular, the Arunachal Christian Forum (ACF) urged all its member and denominational organizations to “extend full support and work for” Congress candidates Nabam Tuki and Bosiram Siram, who went up against the BJP’s sitting parliamentarians in the state.
However, the BJP secured both seats and won another term in the Arunachal Pradesh assembly poll, which was held simultaneously with the general election. It bagged 46 seats in the 60-seat state assembly to secure its third term in power.
But in the end, the disillusionment among Christian voters may have proved the BJP’s undoing in the northeastern region.
Losing those crucial seats may prove costly as it prepares to sit across the negotiating table with alliance partners for talks to form a coalition government with much reduced numbers.
ends
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