Daniel Langthasa calls the idea of a pan-Northeast regional political party “wild” – and that is why, he says, it appeals to him. Earlier this week, he was one of the four leaders from different Northeast states who came together to announce a plan to merge their outfits and create a united political entity – a development being observed by other regional parties with interest, as well as questions and doubts.
Some of these centre around the reach of the four leaders who met.
Langthasa, a former member of Assam’s North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council, resigned from the Congress in 2022. In September this year, he floated a new outfit called the People’s Party, based in the state’s tribal hill district of Dima Hasao. Another leader present was Mmhonlumo Kikon, a two-time Nagaland BJP MLA, an ex-state minister, and a former national spokesperson of the BJP, who resigned from the party in August.
It’s the other two present who have the region abuzz: Conrad Sangma, the Chief Minister of Meghalaya and the national president of the National People’s Party (NPP), the first and only party from the Northeast to be recognised as a ‘national party’; and Pradyot Manikya Debbarma, the titular head of the Tripura royal family, and former Tripura Congress chief, who heads the Tipra Motha. Both incidentally are members of the BJP-led NDA.
At the press conference held in Delhi after the meeting, Sangma said: “For too long, we the younger generation leaders in Northeast have spoken about the same issues and concerns but from different platforms and political spaces. We have realised that it is time to give our people one collective voice.”
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The BJP was the first party to realise the potential of bringing different outfits in the Northeast, rooted in the identities and aspirations of diverse communities, onto one platform. The BJP even gave it an identity separate from the NDA – which carried a Hindi heartland overhang – calling it the North East Democratic Alliance.
On the ground, this has meant the BJP is either the ruling party or is part of the ruling coalition in almost all the Northeast states.
In Assam and Tripura, the BJP has alliances with regional parties such as the Asom Gana Parishad and Bodo outfits United People’s Party Liberal and Bodo People’s Front, and Tipra Motha, respectively, despite having a majority in the two states on its own. In Meghalaya, the NPP-led government is a patchwork of different regional parties and the BJP; in Nagaland, the BJP is in a coalition government with the Naga People’s Front (NPF); and in Manipur, where there is President’s Rule, the BJP ran a government that included the NPP and NPF.
While Arunachal Pradesh is the only Northeast state where the BJP government has no allies, Mizoram is the only one where it is not in power, with the ruling Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) ruling out alliances.
This new forum announced in Delhi seeks to be independent of national parties. This is after decades of dependence by Northeast parties on the Centre, given the amount of finances that flowed to the region, and given security concerns because of the long international border.
Some of the common concerns, cutting across states and communities, identified by Debbarma at the press conference in Delhi included protection for tribal areas, a check on illegal immigration from across the border, and a stop to “mistreatment” of students and young professionals from the region in cities outside the region.
Kikon, the former BJP leader who attended the Delhi meeting, said: “As small regional parties, your voices are not big enough for Delhi to listen. There is currently a vacuum for a party that speaks only about the Northeast to the Union.”
Though the meeting talked of a united party and symbol, Langthasa said: “We are not looking at this as an alliance but state leaders shedding their ego and personal ambitions for unity… I am personally glad that we are not thinking on the line of a merger of the biggest regional players, but something that opens space for a new leadership and voices. I see myself in that role.”
Calling a unified voice “the call of the hour”, Jagadish Bhuyan of Assam’s Asom Jatiya Parishad said they are waiting to see the modalities of what is being planned.
“I spoke to Pradyot. I think it’s a good project and we would like to support a unified process, which should be along the lines of a federation… It has been proved, both under the Congress and BJP, that a national party cannot fulfill regional interests. Regionalism is the only way,” Bhuyan said.
In Mizoram, where the ruling ZPM has not allied with the BJP or any other national party – “to preserve its regional identity” – its Member Secretary, Political Affairs Committee, K Laltluangkima said they held firm on that stand despite their sympathies with the idea of a united body.
“Such an idea could work, but it has to be very inclusive of every state and community,” Laltluangkima said. “But I don’t think our party will easily give up its identity and name.”
As a key opposition player to the NPP in Meghalaya, the Voice of the People – a new outfit like the ZPM – said there was no question of it joining any forum led by the NPP. However, its spokesperson and political science professor Batskhem Myrboh said that he understands the rationale for the move, and that it carried the stamp of the Sangma family’s long aspiration for “politics that transcends states”.
He pointed to Conrad’s father P A Sangma, who was a Union minister and the Lok Sabha Speaker, refashioning the NPP – till then a recognised party from Manipur – as a “national party” in 2013.
Sangma Senior dreamt of the NPP as a party representing tribal interests across the country, including in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, and even won 4 seats in the 2013 Rajasthan Assembly elections, Myrboh said.