The BJP retained power in Arunachal Pradesh with a thumping majority on Sunday, prompting party leaders to assert the landslide win was a “precursor” to June 4 when the Lok Sabha election results will be declared.

The ruling party consolidated its position in the frontier state by winning 46 of the 60 seats and a vote share of 54.57 per cent. The party won 10 seats unopposed. In the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP had won 41 seats with a vote share of 50.86 per cent.

The largest state in the Northeast has a voter count of only 8,82,816.

The results, which were out by afternoon, saw the National People’s Party (NPP) win five seats, NCP three, People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA) two, Independents three and the Congress one. The NPP, NCP (Ajit Pawar) and the PPA are part of the NDA.

“The results were along expected lines. The party in power at the Centre will be in power in the state. It has been like this in Arunachal,” said Nani Bath, a political analyst.

The BJP had fought the polls on the development that has taken place in the state bordering China since 2016 under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The defection of senior Congress leaders in the run-up to the polls also gave a headstart to the BJP.

Chief minister Pema Khandu, deputy chief minister Chowna Mein, Techi Kaso, Nyato Dukam and Mutchu Mithi were among the 10 candidates who won uncontested.

Assembly and Lok Sabha elections were held simultaneously in the state on April 19.

In the 2019 elections, the BJP had won 41 seats, the Congress four, the NPP five (one of the candidates got killed before the results), the JDU seven, the PPA one and Independents two.

The BJP came to power in the state in December 2016 on the back of mass
defections from the Congress led by Khandu, first to the PPA and subsequently to the BJP.

Counting for the state polls took place on Sunday because the term of the Assembly expired on the same day. The counting for the two Lok Sabha seats in the state will take place on June 4 along with the rest of the country.

The lone winner for the Congress was Kumar Waii from Bameng constituency, a former state home minister who defeated the BJP’s Doba Lamnio by 635 votes.

The Congress’s seat tally fell to one from four and the vote share from 16.85 per cent to 5.56 per cent. The vote share of the NCP, NPP and PPA stood at 10.43 per cent, 16.1 per cent and 7.24 per cent, respectively. In 2019, the NPP vote share was 14.56 per cent and the PPA 1.73 per cent.

Arunachal Congress president and former chief minister Nabam Tuki said he was upset with the results. He said the party could not field candidates in all the seats and those they fielded also left, impacting the party rank and file.

The Congress could field only 35 candidates, of which 10 did not file their nomination, five withdrew their nomination and one gave up, leaving only 19 candidates in the fray.

A Congress leader told The Telegraph that the defection of three of the four MLAs to the BJP ahead of the polls and the AICC “concentrating” on the Lok Sabha polls by pulling out Tuki from the state elections also demoralised the party.

Tuki is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Arunachal West against Union minister Kiren Rijiju, who had defeated him in 2019.

“All this affected us but there is nothing to be despondent about. If there is a change at the Centre, all these defectors will be the first to return to the Congress because our state is solely dependent on the Centre for funding. People vote for the party which is in power. This is the trend here,” he said.

Thanking party workers and the people of Arunachal, Assam chief minister and NEDA (North-East Democratic Alliance) convener Himanta Biswa Sarma posted on X: “The landslide victory in Arunachal Pradesh is precursor to what is to come on the 4th of June. These results indicate the tremendous faith people of the State have in the leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi Ji and the politics of good governance and development, which is exemplified by @BJP4India.”

Assam minister Ashok Singh, the BJP’s election in-charge for Arunachal Pradesh, said the mandate was a “curtain raiser” of what was to come on June 4.

Modi, too, thanked the people of Arunachal Pradesh. “The people of this wonderful state have given an unequivocal mandate to politics of development. My gratitude to them for reposing their faith in @BJP4Arunachal yet again. Our Party will keep working with even greater vigour for the state’s growth,” he tweeted.

Khandu said the victory reflected the people’s faith in the BJP’s development agenda and Modi. He said the government formation process would start after June 4 when the central observer would visit the state to take stock. Khandu is most likely to continue in his post.