The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) on Tuesday announced that they will jointly contest the 2023 Assembly election in Nagaland. The NDPP will contest on 40 seats and BJP on 20 seats.
This comes after North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) chief Himanta Biswa Sarma and Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio met with Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
“The leadership of the two parties led by BJP President JP Nadda and Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio of the NDPP have mutually agreed to continue the alliance with seat sharing in the forthcoming elections to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly of 40:20, wherein the NDPP will contest in 40 seats and the BJP will contest in 20 seats. There will be no friendly contest in any constituency,” the joint statement said.
The NDPP-BJP Alliance in Nagaland was formed in 2018. Under the seat-sharing understanding between the two parties ahead of the elections to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly in 2018, the NDPP contested in 40 seats and the BJP contested in 20 seats.
“The NDPP-BJP Alliance has grown from strength to strength and continued to win the popular support of the people in the past four years having emerged victorious in elections to the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha and assembly by-elections,” the statement stated.
Responding to this, Assam Chief Minister BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said, “We will jointly contest elections with Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party in Nagaland in 2023. NDDP will contest on 40 seats and we will contest on 20 seats.”
“We discussed our party and alliance government and other issues of Nagaland. We’re having elections next year. On the inter-state border issue, we have a full understanding and things are going smoothly,” Nagaland CM told ANI after meeting Amit Shah. (ANI)