GUWAHATI: The results of the Assembly elections in the three northeastern states of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya have given a clear indication that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will return to power after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said today.
Sonowal also said the people of the northeast were taking the lead in making a "Congress-mukt Bharat" (Congress-free India) and the results of the three Assembly elections in which Congress has been marginalised were a clear indication of it.
"Congress has not won a single seat in Tripura and in Nagaland. In Meghalaya, Congress has been confined to limited seats. It is a clear sweep for the BJP.
"It is a clear indication that the people have reposed faith in prime minister's development agenda and also a clear indication that the NDA, under Modi's leadership, will return to power after the 2019 general elections," he told PTI.
The Assam chief minister claimed that the Congress had no agenda for the development of the country and miserably failed in its long rule in the country.
The BJP is set to dethrone the CPI(M) after its more than two decades rule in Tripura.
In Meghalaya, the Assembly election results were likely to throw up a hung verdict, while in Nagaland, it was a close contest between the ruling Naga People's Front and the BJP-Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party combine.
The Congress is in power only in one state -- Mizoram -- out of the eight northeastern states.
The BJP is in power in three states -- Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh -- while the Sikkim Democratic Front, an NDA ally, is in power in Sikkim.
The BJP first came to power in the northeast by winning in Assam under Sonowal's leadership.