With the electoral debacles of the Congress and CPI(M) in Northeastern states of Meghalaya and Tripura have dealt a body blow to the Opposition parties, thereby shrinking their space. The CPI(M) has reduced to a regional party with only a shaky bastion Kerala to its credit. Both the parties are paying for their sins of non-performance. The CPI(M)-led Left Front ruled the state with the beastly might of the party apparatus. There is merit in the critics’ allegation that every time Manik Sarkar won the election, it was the party which voted him to power through electoral malpractices and scientific rigging, and not the people. Heightened vigil of the Election Commission officials and removal of about 40,000 fake voters from the electoral rolls have upset the CPI(M)’s apple cart.
The victory of the BJP in Tripura has upset West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as the credit for toppling a Left Front government is not her monopoly. She has other reasons to be feared, for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah do not play by the set rules of the game. The BJP has been improving its position election after election. It has been eating into the Left vote share so far. In 2011 Assembly elections, the Left had 40.22 per cent votes while in the Lok Sabha elections it has come down to 29 per cent which further went down to 25.8 per cent in 2016 Assembly polls.
The Nagaland and Meghalaya results have busted the myth that BJP can’t win in states where minority communities are in majority. With all Northeastern states under its belt, the BJP is looking south and East for expansion. In Odisha, the party has improved its position tremendously. The general consensus among political observers is that the saffron party would wrest Karnataka from the Congress, given the anti-incumbency being faced by the Siddharamaiah government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has talked about the need to win Kerala also. Although the BJP has improved its vote share consistently, it was finding difficult to win seats in Kerala, where coalition politics was the norm. Rout in Tripura has shaken the confidence of the Left. The killing of two Muslim youths belonging to two different political parties has alienated the Muslim community, though LDF has been indulging in appeasement politics to win them over. The appeasement policies of the Left have helped only to alienate a section of the Hindus who have been its mainstay. Corruption allegations and unsavory incidents like lynching of a starving tribal youth have dented the LDF’s image beyond repair. The situation in all these states is ripe for the BJP to strike. Going by the past experiences, the BJP is not likely to miss any opportunity.
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