The Battle for the North-East states

After Tamil Nadu, I thought I'll move on to another state that has its polls completed. I thought the north-east region would be a nice option. Considering the following states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura as a group, they account for 25 constituencies in all. Many of these states are considered congress bastions and there is a strong presence of regional parties such as AGP(Asom Gana Parishad) and AIUDF(All India United Democratic Front) in Assam. Both Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi have conducted well-hyped rallies majorly in Manipur and Assam. The presence of a Modi wave in this region is indeed doubtful, but it would sure do a lot to split votes in Congress-dominated regions where the candidate is not really strong. Other important observations to note are -

• the demand for Bodoland could be a huge factor in Assam's Kokrajhar and Mangaldoi constituencies. Depending on how many non-Bodos vote, the results could vary.
• in Lakhimpur constituency in Assam, Ranee Narah, the sitting MP will face a tough challenge from Sarbananda Sonowal of BJP. Sonowal had defected from AGP 3 years back and was once defeated by Ranee Narah in the 1999 elections(when he was part of the AGP)
• In Jorhat constituency in Assam, where tea tribes are an important voter base, BJP's Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, a former tea tribe leader could pose a serious threat to 6-time sitting MP Bijoy Krishna Handique of Congress
• In Kaliabor in Assam, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's son Gaurav, has a British campaigner - his wife, Elizabeth Claire, who is learning Assamese fast and using her language skills at few political rallies she has attended. If he wins, Gaurav, aged 31, could be one of the youngest MPs this year
• In Arunachal Pradesh West, Congress's Takam Sanjoy and BJP's Kiren Rijiju fought a close battle in 2009 as well, and Takam Sanjoy won by a mere 1314 votes. This time, Kiren Rijiju will have a stronger chance. The other Arunachal constituency should go to Congress in all likelihood
• In Sikkim, the sitting MP, Prem Das Rai is the first MP to have the IIT-IIM tag, having studied in IIT-K and IIM-A. He has a strong political record as well, and is seen as the most favored candidate.

So the seat tally as per my predictions looks as follows

State	Constituency	Predicted Winner	Party	Other Top 2 Candidate	Party
ARUNACHAL PRADESH	ARUNACHAL EAST	Ninong Ering	INC	Tapir Gao	BJP
ARUNACHAL PRADESH	ARUNACHAL WEST	Kiren Rijiju	BJP	Takam Sanjoy	INC
ASSAM	AUTONOMOUS DISTRICT	Biren Singh Engti	INC	Joy Ram Engleng	BJP
ASSAM	BARPETA	Phani Bhusan Choudhury	AGP	Ismail Hussain	INC
ASSAM	DHUBRI	Badruddin Ajmal	AIUDF	Wazed Ali Choudhury	INC
ASSAM	DIBRUGARH	Rameshwar Teli	BJP	Paban Singh Ghatowar	INC
ASSAM	GAUHATI	Smt. Bijoya Chakraborty	BJP	Birendra Prasad Baishya	AGP
ASSAM	JORHAT	Bijoy Krishna Handique	INC	Kamakhya Prasad Tasa	BJP
ASSAM	KALIABOR	Gourav Gogoi	INC	Jinti Gogoi	AAP
ASSAM	KARIMGANJ	Krishna Das	BJP	Radheshyam Biswas	AIUDF
ASSAM	KOKRAJHAR	Naba Kumar Sarania	Independent	Urkhao Gwra Brahma	Independent
ASSAM	LAKHIMPUR	Sarbananda Sonowal	BJP	Ranee Narah	INC
ASSAM	MANGALDOI	Ramen Deka	BJP	Kirip Chaliha	INC
ASSAM	NAWGONG	Jonjonali Baruah	INC	Rajen Gohain	BJP
ASSAM	SILCHAR	Kabindra Purkayastha	BJP	Sushmita Dev	INC
ASSAM	TEZPUR	Joseph Toppo	AGP	Bhupen Kumar Borah	INC
MANIPUR	INNER MANIPUR	Rajkumar Ranjan Singh	BJP	Dr. Thokchom Meinya	INC
MANIPUR	OUTER MANIPUR	Thangso Baite	INC	Gangmumei Kamei	BJP
MEGHALAYA	SHILLONG	Paul Lyngdoh	UDP	Vincent H. Pala	INC
MEGHALAYA	TURA	Purno Agitok Sangma	NPP	Daryl William Ch Momin	INC
MIZORAM	MIZORAM	Robert Romawia Royte	UDF	C. L. Ruala	INC
NAGALAND	NAGALAND	Neiphiu Rio	NPF	K. V. Pusa	INC
SIKKIM	SIKKIM	Prem Das Rai	SDF	Tek Nath Dhakal	Sikkim Krantikari Morcha
TRIPURA	TRIPURA EAST	Jitendra Choudhury	CPI(M)	Sachintra Debbarma	INC
TRIPURA	TRIPURA WEST	Sankar Prasad Datta	CPI(M)	Salil Saha	AAP

State-wise tally is as follows

	ARUNACHAL PRADESH	ASSAM	MANIPUR	MEGHALAYA	MIZORAM	NAGALAND	SIKKIM	TRIPURA	Grand Total
AGP		2							2
AIUDF		1							1
BJP	1	6	1						8
CPI(M)								2	2
INC	1	4	1						6
Independent		1							1
NPF						1			1
NPP				1					1
SDF							1		1
UDF					1				1
UDP				1					1
Grand Total	2	14	2	2	1	1	1	2	25

BJP would have 8 seats out of this region, and Congress would have 6.