Kohima, February 3: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday released a list of 20 candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections in Nagaland. The polling for 60 seats in Nagaland will be held on February 27, 2018 while the counting of votes will be done on March 3. The Election Commission of India, on January 18, had announced the polling dates for Assembly elections 2018 in the northeastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Tripura will go to polls on February 18 while Meghalaya and Nagaland will vote on February 27 for 60 Assembly seats each.  At present, the Naga People's Front is currently dominating the state. Abhijit Sinha, the Nagaland chief electoral officer had earlier mentioned that the final rolls published has 11, 89,264 voters which is lower than the electorate size of 11,92,377 enumerated in 2013.

As per details by PTI, no candidate filed papers on the the third day of filing of nominations for the Nagaland Assembly election. The filing of nominations in the northeastern states started following the issuance of the poll notification by the Election Commission (EC) on 31 January.

On Saturday, BJP dumped its 15-year-old alliance partner, the ruling Naga People's Front (NPF) and chose to forge an alliance with newly floated Nationalist Democratic People's Party (NDPP). The NDPP is led by former chief minister Neiphiu Rio. As per reports, the decision was taken in New Delhi on Friday at a meeting between BJP president Amit Shah and Rio in the presence of BJP's Nagaland president Visasolie Lhoungu.

The party's state media cell convener, K James Vizo said on Saturday informed that the NDPP would contest 40 of the 60 seats in the state assembly while the BJP would field candidates in the remain 20 seats.  Eleven parties including the ruling Naga People's Front on January 29 had decided not to contest the upcoming polls in the state. These parties had agreed to the demand of tribal bodies and civil society groups to resolve the protracted Naga political problem first. Later, the BJP had announced it would contest the polls.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 03, 2018 10:27 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).