Assembly elections 2023 | Meghalaya, Nagaland vote on February 27

Trinamool Congress hopes to upstage the National People’s Party in Meghalaya while the BJP and partner Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party are expected to have it easy in Nagaland 

More than 34 lakh electors would choose their new representatives from among 552 candidates in Meghalaya and Nagaland on February 27, 2023. 

Like Tripura, where the Assembly elections were held on February 16, both Meghalaya and Nagaland have a 60-member House. But the election would be conducted in 59 seats each. 

Also read:Nagaland polls 2023 | PM Modi cheated people on Naga political issue, alleges Congress

While BJP candidate Kazheto Kinimi was elected unopposed from Nagaland’s Akuluto constituency after his lone Congress rival Khekashe Sumi opted out of the race, election to the Sohiong seat in Meghalaya was deferred following the death of H.D.R. Lyngdoh, the candidate of the ruling National People’s Party (NPP). 

Meghalaya has never had a clear mandate since the first State election in 1972. The NPP, claiming to have provided good governance despite facing a slew of corruption charges, is hopeful about crossing the halfway mark of 30 in the Assembly. 

“I hope the people will keep in mind the stability and the development we ensured in the last five years as the largest of the six parties in the alliance government will help us get an absolute majority,” Meghalaya Chief Minister and NPP supremo Conrad K. Sangma said. 

The NPP is not only against its allies, chiefly the BJP in 56 seats but is also facing rivals Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), a new challenger in the Assembly polls. While the BJP is “realistically” eying “double-digit number” after rivals projected it as an anti-Christian party, Congress seeks to regain its foothold in Meghalaya after losing all its 21 MLAs within four years of becoming the single-largest party in 2018.