Election Commission to announce poll dates of Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya assemblies today

The Election Commission (EC) will announce the elections schedule of assembly elections in three North Eastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland today. The EC has called a press conference at 2.30 pm to announce the poll schedule.

The term of the three state assemblies is ending on different dates in March. The term of assemblies of Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Tripura are ending on March 12, March 15, and March 22, respectively.

While Tripura is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the other two states, the BJP is part of the ruling coalition.


For the BJP, among the three Assembly polls, ideologically, the most important one is Tripura, where the BJP will be directly contesting against its ideological opponents, the Left parties. The saffron party recently organised a "rath yatra" across the state at the start of this year.

The change in Chief Minister from Biplab Deb to Manik Saha and the earlier defection of four MLAs- Ashish Saha, Dibachandra Hranghkhawal, Sudip Roy Barman, and Burbo Mohan Tripura in the past year has hit the party hard.

The BJP-IPFT alliance swept the 2018 Tripura assembly polls, winning a two-third majority in the 60-member House, ending the 25-year-long Left rule in the state.

Currently, the BJP has 33 MLAs, while its ally IPFT has 4. Communist Party of India (M) has 15, and the Congress one. Six seats are vacant.