@Evening: 🔢 Election Results In Three North East States Tomorrow

⤵️ Some hopes 'bout to be dashed

PM Modi and the BJP, and the Congress, the left, and the Trinamool are likely to have contrasting days tomorrow.

Context: The results of the assembly elections in Tripura, Nagaland, and Meghalaya will be out tomorrow — 2 March.

• The results, say most exit polls, will deal a blow to the vaunted dreams of a few politicians, including Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. 

• The BJP-IPFT combine is likely to win a slender majority in Tripura.

• While no party will win a majority of the seats in Meghalaya, the BJP is sure to be part of the next ruling alliance that will exclude the newcomer Trinamool.

• The Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP)-BJP alliance is all set to return to power in Nagaland.

• Read Jaideep Mazumdar's analysis.

Tripura. Whether the BJP-IPFT combine bags a majority or falls short of it, it will have an advantage either way.

• It will have a far larger share of seats in its kitty than the left-Congress alliance.

• The tribal Tipra Motha, which is predicted to bag between 12 to 15 seats, will then emerge as the kingmaker.

• In case of a hung assembly, the Governor will call on the largest party or alliance, which in this case would be the BJP-IPFT alliance, to form the government.

• The Congress is highly unlikely to win more than three to four seats. 

• Whatever be the post-poll scenario, the CPI(M)-led left is likely to find itself as the worst loser.

Meghalaya. The National People's Party is set to emerge as the single-largest party, but will fall short of the majority mark, say most exit polls.

• NPP chief and incumbent CM Conrad Sangma has hinted at the possibility of reviving the alliance with the BJP and the regional party United Democratic Party.

• This alliance had ruled Meghalaya since 2018, but broke up in the run-up to the polls.

• The BJP, predict exit polls, will win four to six seats, while the UDP will bag 10 to 12 seats. The NPP is set to win between 18 and 22 seats. 

• The Trinamool is set to face a major setback.

• Exit polls predict that Trinamool will win between five and 13 seats, most of them in the Garo Hills.

Nagaland. All exit polls predict a comfortable win for the NDPP-BJP alliance.

• The polls predict that the alliance will bag between 35 and 48 seats in the 60-member assembly.

• The regional Naga People's Front is expected to win between five and eight seats, while the Congress is expected to come a cropper or win, at best, a couple of seats.

Bottom line: Thursday is expected to bring good cheer to the BJP.

🎧 Swarajya audiobook: 📖 J Sai Deepak on India, Bharat, and Pakistan

J Sai Deepak, an engineer-turned-litigator, and an occasional contributor to Swarajya, talks about his latest book on this Swarajya audiobook.

• His new book is called India, Bharat and Pakistan: The Constitutional Journey Of A Sandwiched Civilisation.

• It's the second book in his Bharat trilogy, after India That Is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution.

• The new book takes a look at the "combined influence of European and Middle Eastern colonialities on Bharat as the successor state to the Indic civilisation, and on the origins of the Indian Constitution."

• It aims to draw a parallel between the period it covers — from 1740 to 1924, or from the rise of Islamic Revivalism until the end of the Khilafat Movement — and the present day.

• "Perhaps, I would actually go to the extent of saying that it is even worse at this point," Sai Deepak says in the audiobook.

• Give it a listen. It's under an hour.

Download the all-new app to listen.