Congress holds on by a thread
What happened
Indian National Congress held on to being the largest in the House, but only just.
The INC won 21 of the 60 seats — well short of a majority.
Its nearest rival, the Naga People's Front, was close behind with 19 seats.
No single party crossed the 31-seat majority mark, leaving a hung house — a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.
What changed
INC's own seat count didn't hold up nearly as well as its overall position did.
It went from 53 seats to just 21 — a sharp collapse in its own strength, even while it still finished first.
Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — jumped to 87.6%, up sharply from the previous election's unusually light contest.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from this election stand out.
The tightest fight was in Atoizu, Nagaland, decided by just 18 votes — the margin, how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second.
At the other extreme, Aonglenden, Nagaland was won by 80.5% of the vote over the runner-up — the widest margin of the election, measured as a share of the vote rather than in votes.
Sanis, Nagaland drew the most crowded field of the election, with 8 candidates on the ballot.
Ghaspani-I, Nagaland was the state's largest constituency by registered voters, with 54,453 electors on its rolls.
The backdrop
The runner-up this year was contesting under a new name.
Nagaland's Naga Nationalist Democratic Party, formed in 1980, was renamed the Naga People's Council in 1998 and again renamed the Naga People's Front (NPF) at its Ninth General Convention in Kohima in October 2002. Under the NPF name, it led Nagaland's government in alliance with the BJP from 2003 to 2018.
Several parties won seats in Nagaland's assembly for the first time this election — BJP, NDM, and JD(U).