Independents surge to the top of a fractured house
What happened
A wave of independent candidates took over the top of the assembly, unseating the party that had led it before.
Independent candidates won 19 of the 60 seats on offer.
The Indian National Congress (I) was next, with 13.
Even so, that left the result well short of the 31-seat majority mark — another hung house, where no single party held enough seats to govern alone.
What changed
The party that had led the previous assembly did not return to the top spot this time.
Independents' own seat count grew sharply, from 5 to 19.
Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — slipped -2.4 pp compared with the previous election.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that election stand out.
Kumbi, Manipur saw the tightest finish of the night, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of just 7 votes.
At the other end, Jiribam, Manipur was the most one-sided result, won by 36.2% of the vote.
The lowest turnout of the night was in Thangmeiband, Manipur, at 64.6%.
The most crowded ballot was Khetrigao, Manipur, where 12 candidates stood.
The backdrop
A few new party labels also appeared on the ballot for the first time.
Among them were INC(I), JNP, and INC(U).