The contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill did not prove to be an election issue in the Northeast
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on May 23 registered a resounding victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, to retain power. The ruling alliance won over 350 seats while Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) itself won 303 seats.
BJP’s strong performance came not only from the retention of most of their seats in the ‘Hindi heartland’ and making deep inroads into eastern states such as Odisha and West Bengal, but also by consolidating its position in the Northeast.
As part of the pre-election mood-gauging exercise, Moneycontrol had found out that the BJP government in northeastern states like Assam was popular and that it could have had a positive impact on the prospects there for the saffron party.
The Northeast region, comprising Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura has a total of 25 Lok Sabha constituencies. The NDA bagged 17 out of these 25 seats in the region. In 2014, the NDA had won 10 seats (BJP had won eight of those).
BJP contested the election along with its Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA) partners such as the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (in Nagaland), Mizo National Front (MNF) (in Mizoram) and Naga People's Front (in Manipur), among others. However, it was engaged in friendly contests with some of these allies in specific constituencies.
The saffron party won all four seats in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura. It also won one of the two seats in Manipur. The party bagged nine out of the 10 seats it contested in Assam.
The party also increased its vote share significantly in states like Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.
The contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill did not prove to be an election issue. The BJP had been pushing for The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that sought to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to make illegal immigrants (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan) eligible for Indian citizenship.
The move had witnessed severe opposition in the region from Congress and other parties, especially in Assam. Some of BJP’s allies such as the AGP had quit the alliance over the issue. However, AGP returned to the BJP fold shortly before the election.
According to a post-poll survey by CSDS-Lokniti, most of the Assamese Hindus opposed the Bill but majority of them voted for the NDA.
However, in neighbouring state of Meghalaya, the citizenship bill had a different impact. According to the CSDS-Lokniti data, 64 percent of the respondents ‘fully opposed’ the bill. BJP has low influence here, compared to some of the other north-eastern states.
