Nagaland Polls

By the time this news report hits the stands, Nagaland would already have finished its polls. Like the last 2003 State Assembly Elections, several parties, both national and regional have joined the fray in the forthcoming March 5th state assembly elections.

Three national parties namely Congress, Bharati  Janata Party (BJP) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have fielded 60, 24 and 8 candidates respectively. The regional parties who are also in the fray are Nagaland People’s Front (NPF) with 56 candidates, RJD with 26 candidates, JD (S) with 5 candidates, JD (U) with 3 candidates, Lok Janskhati Party (LJP) with 3 candidates, United Naga Democratic Party (UNDP) with 2 candidates, Rastriya Lokdal Party (RLD) with 1 candidate and Adarsh Political Party (APP) with 1 candidate. 38 independent candidates will also contest in the forthcoming Nagaland polls.

As of now, it is expected that the fight is likely to be between the Congress party and the regional NPF party while other major players are likely to be the BJP, NCP and the new entrant RJD. It may be mentioned that in the last 2003 state assembly elections, altogether 10 different political parties which included 3 national parties joined the fray.

What is more interesting this time is that most of the leaders from the different political parties are facing tough fights with strong opposition candidates in their respective home constituencies leaving room for the emergence of new leaders if they fail to win the elections.