Battlelines have been drawn for Tuesday’s crucial assembly elections in Nagaland and Meghalaya.
Polling will be held between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., except in some polling stations of the interior districts of Nagaland, where the process is scheduled to conclude at 3 pm.
Though the two states have a 60-member house each, the voting will be held for 59 constituencies in both. Polling in Meghalaya’s Williamnagar constituency was countermanded following the death of NCP candidate, Jonathone N Sangma while in Nagaland, NDPP’s chief ministerial candidate, Neiphiu was declared uncontested from the 11 Northern Angami-II assembly constituency.
The results of the polls in the two states, along with that of Tripura, will be declared on March 3.
A high-decibel campaign for the polls in the two states came to an end Sunday evening.
Buoyed by the formation of governments in Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP is making a determined bid to expand its footprint in the north-east. For the Congress, the poll outcome in Meghalaya is particularly significant as it has been ruling the state for the last 10 years. But this time, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned to throw the Congress out of power and add Meghalaya into its kitty.
Political observers have been keenly watching the BJP’s push in the North East, a Congress stronghold, where the saffron party has traditionally been a marginal player.
In Meghalaya, the Congress and the BJP are pitted against each other. While the former has fielded 59 candidates, the latter has put up nominees in 47 constituencies.
Though they are contesting the polls separately, in Meghalaya, the National People’s Party (NPP) of Conrad Sangma, son of former Lok Sabha speaker P A Sangma, is the BJP’s partner in the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).
In Nagaland, BJP’s hope hinges on its alliance partner NDPP (the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party) of Neiphiu Rio, which is contesting from 40 seats. The saffron party has fielded candidates from the remaining 20 seats.
The Congress, which has given three chief ministers to Nagaland since the state’s inception in 1963, is contesting from only 18 seats, two less than the BJP, an emerging entity in the North East.
There are 370 candidates in the fray in Meghalaya. A total of 18.4 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in 3,083 polling stations in the state.
In Nagaland, a total of 11,91,513 voters — 6,01,707 (50.50 per cent) men and 5,89,806 (49.50 per cent) women — will exercise their franchise on Tuesday. There are also 5,925 service voters. Voting will be conducted in 2,156 polling stations as 40 polling stations fall under the Northern Angami-II seat, from where Rio has been declared elected unopposed.
As many as 281 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), beside the state police force, are deployed throughout Nagaland to ensure a peaceful election. Nagaland’s CEO Abhijit Sinha said all the polling stations would be manned by the CAPF personnel, while the state police would also be assisting them.
Monday, May 4, 2026