Nagaland Election Results 2018 trends indicate a clear win for BJP-NDPP alliance. The alliance is fighting the election under the leadership of former chief minister Neiphiu Rio.
Rio is only Nagaland Chief Minister to have served three consecutive terms from 2003 - 2014. Rio won his first polls as Congress candidate to Northern Angami II constituency in 1989 General Elections.
In 2002, he quit Congress to join NPF and led regional Naga parties and state BJP under the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) banner to form three consecutive governments.
In May 2017, he founded his own Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party but dissociated himself only to later quit the ruling NPF and join it in January this year.
Nagaland Election Results 2018 are a bundle of surprises because of one man - Neiphiu Rio. His own victory from Northern Angami II constituency may have been a foregone conclusion as he was unopposed, but Rio is single-handedly responsible for making the Nagaland polls worth fighting.
Curiously, the 60-seat Nagaland Assembly had no opposition for two years. That is, all elected representatives sat on the treasury benches, after eight Congressmen joined the government in 2015.
The BJP was already part of the ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland, headed by the Naga People’s Front. So, Nagaland became a political curiosity – an Opposition-less state where both the Congress and BJP were part of the same government.
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The state got an opposition after former chief minister Rio decided to ditch NPF after 11 years. Rio had helped found Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party in last May and decided to join it.
A days later, BJP broke away from the incumbent government and announced a pre-poll alliance with Rio's NDPP.
NDPP is contesting 40 of the state’s 60 Assembly seats while the BJP fielded candidates in 20.
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