More supporters, more intending candidates for BJP may mess up the expectation of winning 45 seats

The State Assembly Election which is likely to schedule in the last part of February or the first part of March 2022 is expected to be one of the most violent elections ever witnessed in the state of Manipur. Unlike yesteryear, this time only four major political parties are seen campaigning with heart and soul to strengthen their respective political parties. For the ruling BJP, the party showed extreme seriousness to the election and is living no stone un-turn to make sure that more and more people join the party irrespective of intending candidates or ex-candidates from rival political party particularly from the Congress not to be left out other political parties like the NPF , LJP etc. It is crystal clear that BJP today is becoming the most popular political party in the state as of now. The hard works of the BJP karyakatas under the directives of their higher authority keep continuing their mobilization no matter the intending candidates are present or not. The state of Manipur had witnessed the state President of the BJP visiting all corners of the state campaigning for the party since she was appointed as the state BJP chief.
On the other hand, the National People Party (NPP) which won only four seats in the 11th Manipur Legislative Assembly, but played important role in the formation of the BJP led government; this time is raising its popularity too. More and more winnable aspirant candidates have started choosing this party and started joining it. One advantage of the NPP is that there seems no conflict among the intending candidates that they have welcome to join as no two intending candidates are contesting for the NPP ticket. The party may be small, but it had proven itself as the party that can take the role of x-factor in the formation of the government in the 17th State Assembly. When the number of candidates elect crosses 4 as expected by the party as well as by many political observers, the NPP is going to rise with more power. The same is with the NPF (Naga Peoples’ Front), even as some of their key post holder political workers have left the party and joined the BJP, they still maintain the status-co and is still a partner with the ruling BJP. Like the NPP, the NPF too had played a vital role in the formation of the BJP led government. This time with the 12th Manipur Legislative Election just 4 months to go, the party is working even harder than last time to make sure that the number of their elected members crosses 4.
On the other hand, the Congress party is also trying all effort to make sure that they return to power, with speculation of winning more seats in the upcoming state assembly election. The unfortunate part is that most of the heavy-weight political workers and candidates including the president of the MPCC have already joined the BJP. The people of most constituencies had seen aspirant candidate reluctance to join the Congress Party. At some constituencies like Keishamthong, Sagolband, Uripok, etc. people still are not hearing any news of congress candidates coming out to contest the election.
The present scenario of Manipur’s political theatres indicated that BJP is in the upper hand and has more supporters. But then, what would happen after the declaration of the party tickets to any of those candidates that they think fit to contest. The election strategy of a bigger state like Uttar Pradesh will be hard to imply in a small state like Manipur which has around 30,000 voters per assembly constituency. Manipur has 69 Assembly constituencies and as per information, there are reports of at least 6 to 7 contenders in each assembly constituency except some few. The interesting part is that among the 6/7 intending candidates one-third of the candidates are hoping to get the BJP ticket for fighting the election. But it is natural that the BJP will not be able to select only one candidate for contesting the election.
Last election too, the state BJP office witness intending candidates protesting, some violent for not allotting tickets to them. At some assembly constituency, there were reports of BJP supporters of another intending candidate having a tough fight with the supporters of another intending candidate over party ticket matters.
Now media reports say that some more MLAs of the non-BJP party are all set to join the BJP. If so, whether the grass-root level BJP workers supporting their intending candidate already campaigning under the banner of the BJP will still stay with the party or not is a big question asked by every politically sensible people.
With the circumstances given above, one wonders how the BJP will manage to win 45 seats as claimed by the Chief Minister as well as the president of the BJP. But then people have to wait and watch the technique used by the leadership of the BJP leadership in convincing the intending candidates to support the candidate selected by the party. But we had seen it was never successful.