How Congress is waning out in Nagaland

The grand old party has become almost irrelevant in the State's electoral politics over the years. So much so that it is finding it hard to field 'winnable' candidates in all seats.

The Congress party, which once was invincible in Nagaland and ruled over the State for long, has not been able to find sufficient candidates as the State braces up for Assembly elections on 27th of this month. When major parties have gone full throttle, Congress could field candidates only in 23 seats and is just hoping to break the jinx of not winning a single seat in the last three elections.

The grand old party has become almost irrelevant in the State's electoral politics over the years. In the previous election, Naga People's Front (NPF) had won 26 seats while Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) had secured 18 seats but the Congress failed to muster even a single seat.

Looking back at the 1998 Assembly poll results, the Congress party had bagged the highest number of 53 seats out of 60. In the next 2003 election, despite being the only highest voted party, it felt like left out by the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland, which was formed by NPF, BJP and JDU.

And exactly 20 years later, in the year 2018, the party hardly managed to get 18 candidates out of 60 and did not receive a single seat. Thereafter, Nagaland Congress president Kewekhape Therie allegedly wished to resign from the position. For the unversed, former Pfutsero legislator Therie, was one of the 43 Congress candidates to get elected unopposed during the 1998 Assembly polls.

This time, the party had initially 25 candidates in the fray but two of them decided to withdraw their nominations. Furthermore, the party was seeking to form a pre-poll alliance with 'like-minded' parties like NPF but did not get a positive response for obvious reasons.

However, despite all odds, Therie is all geared up for its forthcoming election as he is contesting from the constituency of Dimapur I against BJP MLA Tovihoto Ayemi. Moreover, Therie has been organizing press conferences frequently and targeting the BJP-NDPP alliance. He took a jibe at BJP's much-publicized rally in Tuensang and also slammed PM Modi for his speech on early solutions to the Naga problem.

All said and done, it is to be seen if Therie turns out 'fourth time lucky' by winning at least his seat this election. Fingers crossed.