BJP's Daochier I Imchen
Kohima: Along with the splendid victory in Assam, BJP won the bye-election in Nagaland too. Fresh off its impressive performance in Assam, the BJP scripted yet another winning chapter — this time in the remote hills of Nagaland’s Mokokchung district, where the Koridang Assembly constituency bypoll threw up results that were as decisive as they were dramatic.
BJP’s Daochier I. Imchen romped home with a comfortable margin of 3,123 votes on May 4, bagging 7,317 votes in total. The Independent candidate Toshikaba put up the closest fight, polling 4,194 votes.
The bypoll itself carries an emotional undercurrent that is hard to miss. The seat fell vacant after the passing of sitting BJP MLA Imkong L. Imchen — a political heavyweight who had represented Koridang no fewer than five times. In stepping into his father’s shoes, Daochier has not just won an election; he has carried forward a family legacy that has defined Koridang’s political identity for decades.
At 35, Daochier I. Imchen now enters the 14th Nagaland Legislative Assembly as its youngest sitting member — a fact that adds a certain poetic weight to what is otherwise a hard-fought political victory. His dominance was visible across polling stations, with the Mangmetong and Longkhum areas proving to be particularly strong bastions for him.
If BJP’s performance was the headline, Congress’s showing was nothing short of an embarrassment. The grand old party’s candidate T Chalukumba Ao managed to scrape together just 144 votes across the entire constituency — a number so thin that it barely cleared the NOTA (None of the Above) tally of 48 votes. In plain terms, Congress beat a blank ballot by just 96 votes. In a constituency with over 22,000 registered electors, that is a number that will sting for a long time.
Among the other candidates, Independent Imtiwapang finished third with 3,633 votes, while NPP nominee I. Abenjang polled 3,219 votes — both putting up a significantly better fight than the Congress.
The bypoll saw a robust voter turnout of 82.21%, with 18,400 of the 22,382 registered electors casting their votes across 30 polling stations on April 9. Counting commenced at 8 a.m. on May 4 at the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Mokokchung, under tight security cover — multi-layer personnel deployment and CCTV surveillance ensuring that proceedings remained peaceful, in light of past incidents of poll-related tension in the region.
Daochier’s win was further bolstered by the fact that he entered the contest as the consensus candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Alliance (PDA) government — a coalition led by the Naga Peoples’ Front (NPF) — giving him a political backing that extended well beyond the BJP’s own cadre base. Despite the Church Bodies backup the NPP candidates secured 4th position and BJP managed to retain the constituency with a comfortable win. BJP has 12 legislators in the Christian majority state.
