Three cheers Modi

In the Northeastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland, the BJP and its allies returned to power in the results declared Thursday. The party overcame a Left-Congress alliance and the TIPRA Motha, which had emerged as a force to reckon with in tribal seats, to bag 32 seats in Tripura, two more than the halfway mark. It retained power in Nagaland along with senior alliance partner Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP). In Meghalaya, BJP’s senior ruling ally National People’s Party (NPP) emerged as the single-largest party – both are expected to tie up again after fighting the elections separately. The Tripura result underlined the party’s popular acceptance in the erstwhile Left bastion that it won for the first time in 2018 even though its seat tally came down from 36 five years ago to 32. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Modi said, ‘Many political analysts are trying to understand the reason for the victory of the BJP. Some of our well-wishers want to know the reason. The reason is ‘Triveni’ (the combination of three streams),” PM Modi said. “The first power is the work of the BJP govts, the second one is the work style of the BJP and the last one is the karyakartas of the BJP,” he explained. ‘I don’t know whether this time too the EVM will be blamed for BJP’s victory in northeastern states’, he said.ac