Expectedly it is the two principal political parties which have announced the names of candidates for the upcoming Assembly election. While the Congress has named candidates in all the 60 Assembly seats, the BJP is yet to name its candidates in Bishnupur AC and Lamshang AC. Whether the BJP will field candidates in these two Constituencies or not will be known only in the coming days, but everything says that it is going to be a tough fight between the two political parties. In a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, the BJP will have to learn how to neutralise the growing voice of disappointment and discontentment of all the aspiring candidates. So while it has named 58 candidates in the 60 member Assembly, the BJP will now have to deal with the more than 100 disappointed ticket seekers. Simple arithmetic it is. With at least three or four intending candidates vying for the party’s ticket in each Assembly segment, save for a few, this means that in naming one candidate for one Assembly Constituency, it would have left the others, two or three, deeply disappointed. True before the names were finalised, all the intending candidates made a big show of demonstrating that those who could not make it to the final list will support the chosen candidate, but in reality this is not going to be the case and this is something which the Congress will not fail to capitalise upon.
As things stand today, a good number of BJP intending candidates who could not make it to the list have decided to join other political parties and contest the election. This will be a major headache to the BJP for such candidates have the potential to eat into each others’ vote and in the process indirectly help the Congress candidate. This is more likely in the Assembly Constituencies which elected the Congress candidate in the 2012 Assembly election. And with the Congress romping home by such a huge margin, and with many of them retained as candidates in the coming election, they would have surely succeeded in building their vote banks. The BJP think tank surely have the job cut out for them and that is how to rein in the hopeful candidates and see how the party can dissuade them from contesting in the election. While some candidates in some Constituencies have announced their decision to go ahead and contest the polls from other political parties, some are purportedly discussing the same with their supporters. A clearer picture will emerge in the next few days, but already the Congress camp must have witnessed the developing scenario with glee.
Source: The Sangai Express
