NEW DELHI JAN. 12. Politics in the north-east is not what it is in the rest of the country. Parties on the same side of the political fence elsewhere find themselves in opposite camps here and as for the regional parties, it is anybody's guess which way they will go.
The scene in the run-up to the next month Assembly elections in Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland presents an interesting picture.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which runs two coalition Governments with the Congress in Maharashtra and Meghalaya, will be its main rival in Meghalaya this time. And in Nagaland, the NCP is in the process of finalising a tie-up with a regional outfit to challenge the Congress Government of S.C. Jamir.
The dilemma faced by the Congress is not only confined to its relations with the NCP. In Tripura, the party will be locked in a direct contest with the CPI (M)-led Left Front Government. For a while at least, the Congress will have to play down the fact that at the Centre it has been coordinating closely with the CPI (M) to take on the BJP.
And the CPI (M) will have to forget it contested the Gujarat Assembly polls along with the Congress.
The Left Front has tied up with the INPT, an outfit that has shades of the Tripura Upajati Juba Samati (TUJS), and also enjoys the support of the Nationalist Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT). The Congress and the TUJS had contested together the earlier Assembly polls.
The CPI (M) central leadership had failed to dissuade the Congress from entering into an electoral pact with the INPT on the ground that it has been set up and is guided by the banned NLFT.
In Meghalaya, the home State of the NCP leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker, P.A. Sangma, the battle could be a three-way contest — the Congress, the NCP and regional parties. It is another matter that almost all parties, the Congress, the BJP, the NCP or regional outfits, have shared power during the past five years.
The Congress, which could not win the trust vote in 1998 there, now shares power with the NCP. Yet, that has not stalled the NCP from deciding to go it alone and contest all the 60 seats.
Ironically, at a time when the NCP chief, Sharad Pawar, expressed preference to sail with the Congress in Maharashtra, Mr. Sangma has different plans for the party in Meghalaya and Nagaland.
Mr. Sangma has done groundwork along with the Samata Party chief, George Fernandes, to tie up with the Nagaland People's Front in forming an alliance which includes the BJP and the Janata Dal (United).
It remains to be seen whether this difference in the approach of Mr. Sangma and Mr. Pawar would affect the shape of the NCP in future.