The Election Commission (EC) of India on Wednesday announced the dates for the upcoming assembly elections 2023 in three northeastern states of the country – Tripura, Nagaland, and Meghalaya – with all three states set to vote in the month of February.
The EC has fixed the date for the upcoming elections, with the assembly polls in Tripura set to be conducted on February 16, and Nagaland and Meghalaya set to vote for the polls on February 27. The counting of votes for all three states will be conducted on March 2.
The three poll-bound northeastern states may be small in terms of their electoral size but hold larger political significance. While the BJP is pulling out all the stops to retain power in Tripura and expand its footprints in the two other states, Congress and the Left are trying to recapture their lost influence.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) is also making a determined bid to prove its clout outside West Bengal by contesting these polls.
The three state assemblies have a strength of 60 members each. While the term of the Nagaland Assembly ends on March 12, the terms of the Meghalaya and Tripura assemblies end on March 15 and March 22 respectively.
The Election Commission decided to conduct the polls in all three northeastern states in the month of February so as to not coincide with the examination schedule in March, which might get disturbed due to the assignment of polling centers and duties.
With Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati recently questioning the integrity of electronic voting machines (EVMs), the CEC noted that many political parties that had expressed doubts over the machines earlier had won elections through the same process.
While Tripura has a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) is in power in Nagaland. The National People's Party (NPP), the only political party from the northeast that has the recognition of a national party, runs the government in Meghalaya.
(With PTI inputs)
READ | Delhi traffic update: Restrictions on Kartavyapath due to Republic Day parade rehearsals, routes to avoid
