Manipur assembly elections will be held in two phases, voting for the first phase is on February 28, and the second phase is on March 5.
Manipur has 60 constituencies, Out of which 40 are in the valley and 20 in the hills. Magic figure for any party to form the government in Manipur is 31. In the hill region of the state mostly Christian population is there and rest of the parts have majority of Hindu's.
The population of the state is 28 lakh, majority of them i.e. 20 lakh voters live in Imphal. 41 per cent of Manipur’s population are tribals and 53 per cent are Meitei ethnic groups.
In 2017, The Congress won 28 seats out of the total 60 seat and became single largest party. However BJP despite of winning 21 seats formed the government with support of four National People’s Party (NPP) MLAs, four Naga People’s Front (NPF) MLAs and one MLA each from Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and an Independent.
3 parties plays major role in Manipur politics are NPP, Congress, BJP. other parties also have role but its just to support these three parties with their MLA.
National People’s Party (NPP): The NPP is a regional party and basically from Meghalaya. Conrad Sangma is the national president of the party. Now the party has presence in Manipur and Meghalaya in both the states.
The NPP is currently in alliance with the BJP and also formed the government with them in 2017. They won four seats in last election. In 2017 NPP fought on 9 seats however this year without any alliance they are fighting on 20 seats so far and may fight on all the constituencies.
Congress: The Congress government was there in Manipur for over 15 years. But after 2017 many MLAs left the party and went into the BJP. N Biren Singh one of the oldest leader of Congress left the party and joined BJP. After which Congress started loosing its pace in the state.
This year Congress has formed an alliance with five left parties. They have declared 40 candidates for upcoming state elections.
BJP: In 2016 Congress leader N Biren Singh joined BJP. This is where BJP started gaining in Manipur politics.
In the 2017 election, though Congress has majority of seats and BJP won only 21 seats but with post-poll alliance with NPP and NPF, they formed the government. This year BJP, is planning to win more than 40 seats in the 60-member assembly.
