The Congress party might be in for a jolt in Nagaland after it has been reported that it is struggling to find candidates for the upcoming elections in the state.
As per a Congress functionary who is overseeing the party’s preparations for the state’s polls, owing to the lack of candidates the party might end up contesting just 20-25 seats. What made matters worse was that the Congress had managed to ready a list of 20 candidates last week, but even out of that two people decided to leave the party.
The party workers’ lack of enthusiasm, shortage of resources and organisational weakness has been blamed for such a muted response.
Seems that earlier the Congress had also hoped for a pre-poll alliance with the ruling Naga Peoples Front (NPF), which too suffered a blow after NPF announced candidates for all the 60 seats. The last time Congress was in power in the state was from 1993-2003 under SC Jamir and going by this year’s preparation, it may not be able to win the elections anytime soon.
The elections are to be held on 27th February and the last date to file the nominations is Wednesday. As per latest reports, the party has released a list of 23 candidates for the polls.
Such a muted response for the Congress might again bring into focus, the troubles it has been facing in the Northeast.
About a week back, it was reported that a whopping 115 Congress members had resigned from the party in Meghalaya, on the day when Rahul Gandhi kick-started his poll campaign in the state. Besides this four Congress MLAs had joined the BJP at the start of January.
In December it was reported that senior Congress leader in Tripura Ratan Lal Nath, along with a large number of party members joined the BJP.
Back in July 2017, the Congress had suffered a blow in Manipur when two of its MLAs had joined the BJP led government in the state.