Tripura will vote to elect a new Assembly on February 18, while neighbouring Nagaland and Meghalaya will go to the polls on February 27, the Election Commission announced on Thursday.

The announcement of election in the three north-eastern States was accompanied by prospects of a keen contest between the BJP and the Left in Tripura, which has been ruled by the CPI(M) for the last 20 years. In Meghalaya, the BJP will look to supplant the ruling Congress.

The terms of the Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura legislatures end on March 6, March 13 and March 14 respectively. The Assemblies have 60 members each.

While Nagaland is ruled by BJP ally Naga People’s Front, the ruling party at the Centre has declared its intent to make the entire North-East “free of Congress-Left rule”.

Driving the BJP’s electoral charge is former Congress strongman Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has pledged to rid the entire North-Eastern region of his former party’s political domination. Sarma, once a protégé of former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi, joined the BJP in 2015 after publicly expressing his contempt for the Congress central leadership, especially Rahul Gandhi. Sarma has since become the convener of the North-East Democratic Alliance, and has consolidated regional parties behind the BJP.

Sarma spearheaded the BJP’s successful campaign in Assam in 2016, and has been leading an aggressive campaign to dislodge the Congress from every State in the North-East.

Sarma proceeded to engineer the installation of a BJP government after the Manipur Assembly elections last year, even after the Congress had won 28 seats, seven more than his party, which won 21 seats.

With defectors from the ruling Congress-Trinamool Congress coalition, and the support of regional allies such as the Naga People’s Front, the National People’s Party and the Lok Janshakti Party, Sarma ensured that the BJP formed the government in Manipur even though the Congress had won more seats in the State.

In Tripura, Sarma has given a call for the “demise of the CPI(M)” which has been in power in the State since 1998. To pose a challenge to popular Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, the BJP is working out an alliance with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPTF), the outfit that caused blockade in the State last year with its demand for separate statehood.

The IPTF envisions a separate Twipraland, comprising areas under the State autonomous district council, for Tripura’s indigenous communities. While the BJP has asserted that no commitment has been made to the IPTF on the demand for separate statehood, its alliance is clearly taking shape with Sarma holding final talks with its leaders.

In Meghalaya, the Congress has been in power since 2006, interrupted for a year when the United Democratic Party was in power followed by a short spell of President’s Rule. In the State, which is 70 per cent Christian, the Church has become politically proactive given the BJP’s fired-up electoral campaign. Chief Minister Mukul Sangma is confident of returning to power given the stability he has provided since he took over in 2010. In the preceding ten-year period, the State saw eight different governments and a spell of President’s Rule.

The BJP hopes to displace Sangma by riding piggyback on the National People’s Party (NPP) and its leader Conrad Sangma, the son of the late PA Sangma, who was Lok Sabha Speaker. Although the NPP and the BJP have no pre-poll alliance, the prospect of a post-poll alliance is clear. While BJP President Amit Shah recently addressed a rally in the State, it is the NPP and Conrad Sangma who is a serious challenger to the incumbent Congress, especially in the Garo hills which sends 24 MLAs to the 60-member Assembly.

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