Congress Staring At Ignominious Wipeout In Northeast India

The seven sister states of Northeast India, three of them predominantly Christian, have been Congress citadels for most of the last seven decades. But not anymore. The recent exit polls, as well as ground reports from Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya that went to the polls recently (results will be out on 3 March) have predicted wins for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies in all the three states. Also significant is the predicted decimation of the Congress in Meghalaya and its total wipeout in Nagaland and Tripura.

The Congress has ruled, or rather misruled, all the seven states for most of the years since Independence. The rise of regional parties, however, signalled the beginning of the end of the Congress’ monopoly over power. In some states like Mizoram, the Congress has been ruling alternately with regional parties. But in Nagaland and Tripura, the decline of the Congress started more than a decade ago. Mizoram is the only state in the region where the Congress is still in power, but is widely expected to lose in the assembly elections scheduled for November this year. The Mizo National Front (MNF), a constituent of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), and the BJP (the two will contest separately, but are most likely to form a post-poll alliance), are predicted to rout the Congress in that remote state which is encircled by Myanmar and Bangladesh to its east, south and west.

There are many reasons for the Congress’ decline and its expected eventual decimation in the Northeast. The primary among them is its failure to meet the aspirations of the people. The Congress has little to show for the many decades it ruled over the seven states. All of them are horribly backward, poor, and neglected. With virtually no industries - save for the tea and oil sectors in Assam -the ranks of the unemployed has swelled and all the states are totally dependent on doles from the Union government with no revenue generation of their own. The toxic mix of unemployment, backwardness and the despair it all generated had triggered armed insurgencies that caused immense sufferings to the people and led to a lot of bloodshed.

The Congress has also been directly responsible for the large-scale corruption and graft that has become endemic in the Northeast. “The Congress’ central leadership encouraged the blatant and large-scale loot of the public exchequer by its leaders and functionaries in the Northeast since it benefited directly from it. Due to the remoteness of the region and the resultant lack of oversight by various agencies, as well as the lack of interest in the region’s affairs by the national media, the large scale corruption in the region remained unreported and unchecked. A substantial portion of the loot (by Congress leaders) used to go back to the party coffers in Delhi. Hence, the Congress ‘high command’ not only turned a blind eye to the loot, but also encouraged it for the petty interests of the party. Many central leaders, especially the Congress’ central observers and general secretaries in charge of the states in the region, used to receive a share of the loot,” revealed a BJP leader from Meghalaya who quit the Congress a decade ago.

The corruption that the Congress encouraged led to the region remaining terribly backward. The thousands of crores of rupees that has been allocated to the seven states from the central exchequer have been mostly siphoned off by leaders who enriched themselves at the cost of their own people and states. Most of the roads and bridges in the region have remained in pitiable state and healthcare and educational infrastructure and facilities are a joke. “New Delhi (those in power there) always felt that any action taken against corrupt politicians of the region would spark resentment, thus leading to revolt and rise of fissiparous tendencies,” said the Meghalaya BJP leader who did not want to be named.

The under-development, lack of jobs and business opportunities, excruciating poverty, and the consequent gloom and despondency that enveloped the region led to the gradual erosion of the Congress’ support base in the region. It also created a chasm between the Northeast and the rest of the country with the people of the region resenting what they perceived was the ‘step-motherly’ treatment of the Northeast by the Centre, and, thus, the rest of the country. This chasm only grew wider over the decades and led to the ‘us-versus-them’ sentiments and the feeling of alienation from ‘mainstream’ India. This sense of alienation bred a deep feeling of suspicion and mistrust among the people of the region towards people from the rest of the country.

It was this that led to the rise of regional parties in the region. The cardinal mistake that the Congress committed was that it viewed the rise of regional parties as a direct existential threat and pitted itself in virulent opposition to them. The people of the Northeastern states started viewing the Congress as an ‘external’ party that had failed to deliver and had only exploited the region to stay on in power. This is why the Congress has been reduced to a party with just a signboard in Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

The BJP has been wise and has joined forces with regional parties in the states. “We believe in working with all regional parties for the development of the region. It is this synergy between the BJP and regional parties that can bring a lot of benefits to the region. That is why we aligned with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in Assam, the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) and regional parties in other states. We have also formed the NEDA to bring all the progressive regional parties on board and work towards accelerated development of the region. These are alliances that will change the face of the Northeast and make the region prosperous,” BJP’s in-charge of the Northeast, Ram Madhav, told Swarajya.

These strategic alliances have not only propelled the BJP’s rise in the region, but are also expected to bridge the chasm between the Northeast and the rest of the country created by the decades of Congress misrule. As for the Congress, it faces a total rout in the Northeast. And there are slim chances of the Congress regaining the lost ground, at least in the foreseeable future.