Counting Of Votes In Nagaland, Tripura And Meghalaya: Date, Time And Where To Watch

Counting of votes for assembly elections held in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura will take place on Thursday (March 2). The voting on 178 seats across three states was held on February 16 and 27. The counting of votes will begin at 8am as per the directives from Election Commission of India (ECI). While there are 60 seats in Nagaland, one constituency (Akuluto) has been won uncontested by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In Meghalaya too, the total number come down from 60 to 59 as election on one seat has been countermanded.

Where to watch counting of votes?

All the important updates on counting of votes in the three Northeastern states will be available on https://ndtv.com/elections. Users can also click on our Live TV link to watch the in-depth coverage.

The current chief ministers

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) was in power in Tripura for more than 30 years until BJP recorded a historic win in 2018. In the last assembly election, the BJP won 36 of the 60 seats despite having no presence in the state earlier. The CPM won 16 seats and the Congress, which was the main opposition party in the previous assembly, could not even win a single seat. Manik Saha of the BJP is the incumbent Chief Minister.

Meghalaya's Chief Minister is Conrad Sangma, who heads the National People's Party (NPP) and had decided to fight the assembly election solo. His party and Himanta Biswa Sarma's BJP had been running the state government together under the banner of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance.

In Nagaland, the BJP and Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) came to power in 2018. The two parties had come together to form government with support from the Janata Dal (United) and an Independent. The current Chief Minister of the state of Neiphiu Rio.

What have the exit polls predicted?

The BJP will hugely expand its footprint in the Northeast, posting victory in Tripura and Nagaland and winning a bigger share of seats in Meghalaya in the latest round of assembly elections, according to poll of exit polls.

An aggregate of exit polls showed the BJP's alliance government will come to power in Nagaland with ally NDPP (Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party), and win at least seven seats in Meghalaya - up from two.