The BJP and its allies have expressed confidence of winning around 20 out of 25 parliamentary seats in the eight northeastern states in the upcoming general elections. A regional senior party official said that in the next Lok Sabha election the BJP is hopeful of winning seats in states where it had earlier lacked representation, At present, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies have 11 seats in the region, out of which seven are from Assam.
After the last parliamentary election in 2014, the BJP has won assembly polls on its own in two of the north-eastern states ie: Assam and Tripura. Mizoram is the only state that is currently ruled by Congress which is also slated to go to polls in November. The official further said that as per the surveys done by the party, the BJP is likely to win all 6 parliamentary constituencies in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura.
In 2014, the party had could only win one seat in Arunachal Pradesh. Another party leader said that this time the BJP is eyeing nine seats in Assam while expecting the allies to win one seat from the states of Nagaland, Mizoram and Assam. Currently Sikkim is governed by BJP’s ally Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), and rules Meghalaya with its ally, National People’s Party of Conrad Sangma.
This confidence of BJP is also because the party believes that it has succeeded in convincing some Christian majority north eastern state that the party is not against them. The party has also credited the shift of people’s notion towards BJP to the work of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to enhance the party’s expansion in this region.