Rainbow alliance in Northeast

Asom Gana Parishad president Atul Bora on Wednesday said the ‘rainbow alliance’ of his party with the BJP, Bodo People’s Front (BPF) and other ethnic entities of the state would come out victorious in the ensuing Lok Sabha election in Assam. His statement comes at a time when several regional political entities which are officially partners of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) have already announced their respective decisions to fight the Lok Sabha election on their own. Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma has been at the forefront of this, and he has made it amply clear that despite being a NEDA partner, his National People’s Party (NPP) would contest in all the 24 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across the seven states. The NPP has also released its list of candidates for the Arunachal Pradesh State Assembly election which will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha election. Likewise, in Mizoram, the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) is also putting up its own candidate for the lone Lok Sabha constituency in that state. In Mizoram, MNF had fought and won the 2018 state Assembly elections on its own, and despite the party being a member of the NEDA, the lone BJP legislator in the state has been kept out of the government by the regional party. In Tripura, where the BJP had joined hands with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) exactly one year ago to wipe out the Left Front, the regional outfit has already announced names of its candidates for the two Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. In Nagaland, on the other hand, the People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA) has announced the name of a Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) leader for the lone Nagaland Lok Sabha seat. The PDA comprises the NDPP, BJP, JD(U) and the NPP. In Manipur too, the BJP will face a contest from its allies like Naga People’s Front (NPF) in addition to Conrad Sangma’s NPP. This way, it is not clear as to what kind of a rainbow alliance AGP president Atul Bora is exactly talking about. Even for his own Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), it has been allotted only three seats by the BJP, of which two – Dhubri and Barpeta – are extremely difficult. Both are with Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF, which has a clear advantage from the demographic change western Assam has undergone due to the presence of large number of illegal migrants of East Pakistan and Bangladesh origin. What will be also interesting to watch is how NEDA chairman Himanta Biswa Sarma manages the BJP’s allies in the region in the next few days so that the anti-Congress votes do not get split among the NEDA stakeholders. Sarma has been already directed by BJP national president Amit Shah to concentrate on ensuring that all the 24 seats in the seven Northeastern states remain with the NDA, so that Narendra Modi gets a clear second term as the prime minister.