- INC5388.3%
- IND711.7%
Congress's biggest majority yet
What happened
Indian National Congress held on comfortably, winning a commanding share of the seats on offer.
The INC won 53 of the 60 seats.
That gave it 22 seats more than it needed for a majority.
Its nearest rival by vote share — the slice of all ballots cast that went to one party or candidate — was the Independent, which took 49.3% of the vote but won only 7 seats.
What changed
The election marked a sharp reversal for the state's home-grown regional party.
The Nagaland Peoples Council lost the most ground, with 14 of its seats flipping straight to the INC.
Independents collectively won 7 seats this election, their vote spread across many candidates rather than concentrated in one party.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from this election stand out.
The closest fight was in Tizit, Nagaland, decided by just 247 votes — the margin, how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second.
The widest winning margin, by contrast, was in Dimapur-Iii, Nagaland, where the winner finished 70.6% of the vote ahead of the runner-up.
Even Thonoknyu, Nagaland, the most crowded contest that year, had just 4 candidates on the ballot — a sign of how thin the field was across the state.
Only about 22.0% of registered voters cast a ballot that year — 43 of the state's 60 seats had already been decided without a vote.
The backdrop
This wasn't a new position for INC — it had already been winning for a while.
By this election, the INC had won 5 elections in Nagaland in a row.