Regional resurgence

One takeaway from the election results in Mizoram is that the decline in the Congress’ fortunes does not necessarily mean an upswing for the BJP.

Zoramthanga, MNF chief who led the party to a massive victory.

R iding on a strong anti-incumbency wave, the Mizo National Front (MNF) returned to power in Mizoram, ending 10 years of Congress rule in the north-eastern State bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh. The resurgence of the regional party not only decimated the Congress but also shattered the dream of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to get a stronger foothold in north-eastern India.

The MNF won 26 seats in the 40-member Assembly while the Congress won just five. The Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM), an alliance of seven parties, pushed the Congress to the third position by winning eight seats. The BJP managed to open its account and won one seat. In the 2013 Assembly elections, the Congress had won 34 seats, the MNF five and the Mizoram People’s Conference (MPC), one of the constituents of the ZPM, one seat.

Former Chief Minister and MNF chief Zoramthanga led the party to a sweeping victory while the incumbent Chief Minister, Lal Thanhawla, seven-time legislator and five-time Chief Minister, lost both the seats he contested. In Serchhip constituency, he lost to Lalduhoma, the ZPM chief, by a margin of 410 votes and in Champhai South constituency, he lost to MNF candidate T.J. Lalnuntluanga by a margin of 1,049 votes.

The vote share of the parties show that the ZPM cut into Congress votes, which helped the MNF. The MNF polled 37.6 per cent of the votes this time as against 28.65 per cent in the last Assembly elections. The Congress vote share declined to 30.2 per cent from 44.63 per cent in 2013. Even though the overall vote share of the BJP increased significantly to 8 per cent from 0.37 per cent, 22.50 per cent of the votes polled by the party came from the single constituency of Tuichawng. In this constituency, former Congress Minister Buddha Dhan Chakma, who quit the ruling party in October, won the seat on the BJP ticket. He polled 11,419 votes to defeat his nearest MNF rival, Rasik Mohan Chakma, by a margin of 1,594 votes. In 2013, he won as a Congress candidate by a margin of 8,726 votes.

Other than winning this constituency, the BJP had nothing spectacular to show. It secured the second position in only one other constituency. The increase in the overall vote share of the party can be attributed to the fact that it contested in 39 constituencies and polled an average of 500 to 600 votes in more than 30 of them. Both the MNF and the Congress contested in all the 40 seats.

The Congress managed to secure the second position in only 18 of the 35 constituencies it lost, although the victory margin in two of these seats was lower than 100 votes and in three seats lower than 500 votes. In Tuivawl constituency, the MNF candidate, Lalchhandama Ralte, defeated his nearest rival and sitting Congress legislator R.L. Pianmawia by a margin of only three votes. In 2013, Pianmawia won by a margin of 1,371 votes.

Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla blamed a heavy monsoon for the poor and deteriorating road conditions in the State and it did not go down well with the voters. Though he allocated Rs.100 crore for improving the road conditions under the government’s flagship programme, the New Economic Development Policy (NEDP), there were no visible results on the ground. The Congress was pinning its hopes on the NEDP becoming the game changer amidst a rising anti-incumbency feeling, but voters saw it as an election gimmick.

The MNF made the relaxation of the ban on liquor in the State by the government a major election issue and promised to impose total prohibition once it was voted back to power. Zoramthanga, who is set to be sworn in as the new Chief Minister, said immediately after the victory that imposition of a total ban on liquor, infrastructure development, including better roads, and socio-economic development would be his priorities. These are the issues that ensured a massive victory for the MNF. The Congress government replaced the Mizoram Total Prohibition of Liquor Act, 1995, with the Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition and Control) Act, 2014, in January 2015, which allowed liquor shops and bars to be opened. The government went ahead with the relaxation despite opposition by Church bodies, civil society organisations and opposition parties. The opposition parties blamed the government for the death of a large number of people in the State “due to liquor consumption”.

Ironically, it was the Lal Thanhawla government that imposed a ban on liquor in the Christian-majority State in 1997, following a representation by Church leaders. The Congress lost the 1998 Assembly elections to the MNF; it won only six seats. This electoral outcome led the Lal Thanhawla government to misread the mood of the people this time over the liquor-ban issue. The Congress sought to downplay the campaign by the MNF and other opposition parties against the relaxation of prohibition.

Desertion by senior Congress Ministers and legislators in the months immediately preceding the election also contributed to the downfall of the ruling party. As many as five sitting Congress legislators deserted the party. Two of them have won as MNF candidates and one as a BJP candidate. The results are expected to strengthen the perception, which also holds for several other States in the country, that it is a tough game for the Congress if it faces a direct contest with regional parties. In one-to-one fights between the Congress and the BJP, on the other hand, it stands a better chance, as the outcomes in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh show.

The BJP floated the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) in 2016 to articulate its narrative of a “Congress-mukt [Congress-free] north-east”. NEDA was a political necessity for the saffron party to create the perception that it was the sole major player against the Congress in the region, but the electoral outcomes in most north-eastern States show that it is the regional parties that really call the shots.

With the Congress now out of power in all the north-eastern States, “Congress-mukt north-east” may no longer remain an attractive electoral issue for the regional parties in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The BJP may find it difficult to use NEDA for working out seat-sharing formulas that will ensure more seats for the saffron party from the region. Of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the eight north-eastern States, the BJP has nine—seven from Assam and two from Arunachal Pradesh. Other NEDA constituents have three—Meghalaya one and Nagaland and Sikkim one each.

In Assam, the BJP and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), its coalition partner and a NEDA constituent, were locked in a bitter battle in the three-tier panchayats as the two parties chose to contest separately. The AGP has threatened to sever its ties with the BJP the moment the Narendra Modi government passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. Assam accounts for 14 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the north-eastern region. The Assembly results in Mizoram are expected to bolster the AGP’s posturing against the BJP vis-a-vis the Bill. A break- up between the two would make seat-sharing negotiations with other NEDA constituents a tougher challenge for the BJP.

For the Congress in the north-east, the Mizoram outcome has come as a wakeup call. It needs serious course correction with respect to electoral strategies and strengthening of organisational base in order to stay relevant in the game of thrones. The Congress cannot expect the major regional parties to be its partners in the game. The challenge for the party that ruled the north-eastern States for decades will be to articulate regional aspirations through innovative and effective electoral narratives, backed by a strong organisational base and an alternative agenda. With the Lok Sabha election less than four months away, this appears to be a Herculean task for the North-East Congress Coordination Committee, reconstituted by Congress president Rahul Gandhi. But the BJP has to contend with the political reality that the decline in the Congress’ fortunes in the region does not necessarily mean its gain. It will be a hard bargain with the regional parties in order to make sure that the construct of the Congress-BJP binary keeps working in its favour.