The results of the bye-elections to the Tuensang Sadar-II and Dimapur-I Assembly Constituencies went as expected with the Opposition Congress and the ruling NPF sharing the spoils at the expense of the BJP, whose tally now stands at five MLAs in the Sixty Member State Assembly. The BJP without a doubt is the clear loser in these polls and unless the party leadership takes a more forthright stand, it will continue to play second fiddle to the NPF and Congress. The BJP in the State appears to be uncertain and the party should not be under the illusion that the NPF is its natural ally. For that matter leaving aside its enemy number one the Congress, the NPF will also try to make inroads into the support base of the BJP. The results in both Dimapur-I and Tuensang Sadar-II clearly show this. And if the BJP is to survive as a political force in the State, it should come out of its comfort zone, which invariably means, not to live as tutelage of the NPF. Political alliance is one thing but it will be futile on the part of the BJP to sacrifice its own political interest at the altar of coalition politics.
As far as the NPF is concerned, with the crucial Assembly Election round the corner, the party will have to adopt a cautious line while distributing tickets. The biggest lesson for the NPF coming out of the polls is that if it wants to retain power, the party will have to take due care of the inner factions within the organization and fight the elections in a united manner so that no room is left for the opposition to exploit the situation. The NPF party managers should closely study the poll results in Dimapur-I and Tuensang-II separately to understand this factor clearly. Surprisingly in Dimapur, despite the presence of known ‘power centers’, the NPF was able to manage the pulls and pressures of factional politics. And this unity in purpose is reflected in the final tally where Atomi Zhimomi has not been adversely affected by any division of votes. However, the same cannot be said about its performance in Tuensang where its candidate H. Wongto lost crucial votes because of the presence of two Independents, both having been turned down NPF party tickets. Even if one of the Independent N. Kaimang—who polled 1744 vote—had been persuaded to stay off the polls, the NPF would have won quite easily given that the margin of defeat was small.
Coming to the Opposition Congress, as far as Dimapur-I is concerned, the party may have lost out because of the choice of candidate. And as earlier commented in this column, whether the Congress may have missed an opportunity by ignoring the candidature of KL Chishi. On Tuensang, while the Congress was always expected to bounce back given that it was fighting in one of its traditional strongholds, the narrow margin of victory for the Congress candidate Kejong Chang should be a matter of concern for the Opposition Congress. As such the party leadership will have to reassess its performance in the aftermath of the Bye-Election results. The question it needs to ask itself (especially seeing the Tuensang tally) is whether it can afford to ride on its rival’s weakness (here the division of votes) or come to power on its own strength and vision for the people. If the Congress wants to have any chance of coming back to power, it has to do much better than what it has done in the recent Bye-Election.
