The Bharatiya Janata Party will retain Tripura and form the government in Nagaland with the Neiphiu Rio-led Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party, multiple exit polls predicted on Monday. In Meghalaya, Conrad Sangma’s National People’s Party is likely to be the single largest party.
The predictions were made after voting for the Assembly elections in the three northeastern states concluded. Meghalaya and Nagaland voted on Monday while polling was held on February 16 in Tripura. Each state has 60 Assembly seats.
The BJP could win about 31 seats – exactly the majority mark – in Tripura, NDTV reported, citing an aggregate of three exit polls. The Left could get 15 seats but its ally, the Congress, is not likely to contribute anything to the tally, according to the news channel. New entrant Tipra Motha is likely to secure 13 seats.
In the 2018 elections in Tripura, the BJP and its ally, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura, had won a comfortable majority by dismantling the Left Front government of 25 years.
In Nagaland, the BJP and NDPP alliance could win 42 seats, the exit polls showed. The Naga People’s Front is expected to get six seats and the Congress one.
In Meghalaya, Sangma will emerge as the single largest party with 23 seats, according to NDTV’s tally of the exit polls. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is predicted to win 11 seats. The Congress will finish third with six seats, the polls predicted.
The BJP had severed ties with the NPP before the elections this year and contested all 60 seats alone.
“If we get a fractured mandate we will have to talk to other parties to form government,” Sangma, who contested from the South Tura constituency, told NDTV after the exit polls.
The results for all the three states will be announced on Thursday.
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