Neiphiu Rio, the incumbent chief minister of Nagaland, formed the government in 2018 by a thin margin. In 2023 he and his party, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), are back to the strength in the assembly Rio is used to. Meanwhile, both his former parties — the Naga People’s Front (NPF) and the Congress – have now been reduced to also-rans.
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Rio first became chief minister in 2003, after leaving the Congress and forming the Naga People’s Front (NPF). In that election, the NPF’s 19 MLAs formed the government in the 60-member assembly after stitching an alliance with seven MLAs from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other smaller partners. In the next two elections in 2008 and 2013, the NPF first became the single-largest party and then won almost a two-thirds majority. The Congress on the other hand went from winning majority of the ACs from 1987 to 1998, to 21 ACs in 2003 when it was still the single largest party and eventually zero in 2018. It has failed to win any AC in 2023 also.
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The trend that played out between the NPF and the Congress has now played out between the NPF and NDPP, the party Rio formed after quitting the NPF just before the assembly elections in 2018. With 27 MLAs, the NPF was the single largest party in 2018, like the Congress was in 2003, but it was the 17 NDPP MLAs that formed the government in alliance with the BJP. The NPF has now been reduced to just two ACs. To be sure, the NPF’s decline was a given even before the election. With defections to the NDPP last year, the NPF was able to put up candidates in just 22 of 60 ACs.
Rio also does not appear to be under any pressure from alliance partner the BJP. Unlike Tripura and Meghalaya, where the BJP either fought a bigger share than 2018 or continued to contest independently, it accepted the seat sharing arrangement in Nagaland proposed by Rio. The BJP won 12 ACs, the same as in 2018.
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