Lok Sabha Elections 2014: Congress Northeast bastions also crumble

GUWAHATI: For the first time in the northeast’s electoral history, the Congress citadel was breached by a saffron wave.Of the 24 seats in NE, BJP has won seven. Congress has so far managed only seven seats, a climb down from its tally of 13 in the 2009 polls.

The counting in two seats of remote Arunachal Pradesh, bordering China, was still on, with Congress leading in one and BJP in another , when the last reports came in.

In Assam, Congress could win only three seats, its worst ever performance. In 2009, it had bagged seven seats. CM Tarun Gogoi tasted Congress’s worst defeat at the hands of BJP, which has bagged seven seats in Assam, but could not spread to other NE states. In the 2009 polls, BJP had won four seats in Assam.

Boosting BJP’s morale further,two of its NDA partners won one seat each in Nagaland and Meghalaya. Of the seven seats BJP won in Assam, four were wrested from Congress, while it retained Gauhati, Mangaldoi and Nagaon seats.