Nowhere in India are elections as bland as in Mizoram, where the influential church – mostly Presbyterian – and community-based NGOs issue stricter dos and don’ts than the Election Commission of India. The lack of colour and hyperbole, however, is compensated to some extent by strong ethnic passions in a State wary of the vai, a term that refers to any non-Mizo residing in Mizoram.
Mizos, meaning people of Zo origin, are the dominant community in Mizoram, almost all of whom follow Christianity.
For five elections since 1998, an issue that has partially impacted polls in Mizoram was the call by certain sections to disenfranchise the minority Bru people who fled to Tripura following ethnic violence in 1997. The issue was buried in January 2020, when the Union government facilitated the permanent settlement of about 34,000 Brus displaced from Mizoram in adjoining Tripura.
Absorbing refugees
What Tripura faced for more than two decades, Mizoram began experiencing after the military coup in neighbouring Myanmar in February 2021. Thousands of Chin people, fleeing the civil war in Myanmar, began pouring into the State. In November 2022, a few hundred Kuki-Chin also took refuge in Mizoram after fleeing alleged persecution in Bangladesh.
The Chins, Kuki-Chins, and the Kuki-Zo people of Manipur are ethnically related to the Mizos.
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Despite the Union government’s indifference to the refugee crisis in Mizoram, the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) has played the humanitarian card to make the Myanmar and Bangladesh nationals feel at home. This did not seem to have worked for them, as the MNF, battling anti-incumbency, charges of nepotism, corruption, and fiscal crisis, suffered an electoral setback in central Mizoram in April. The extremist outfit-turned-political party, which won 27 of the State’s 40 Assembly seats in 2018, lost all 11 seats in the Lunglei Municipal Council to the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM).
The ZPM — which displaced the Congress as the State’s main Opposition party in 2018 by winning eight seats, with its candidates contesting as independents — had given the MNF a run for its money in 2021 by penetrating areas in Chief Minister Zoramthanga’s Assembly constituency of Aizawl East-1, although it had bagged only six of the 19 Aizawl Municipal Corporation seats. Mr. Zoramthanga, a former extremist hardened by guerilla warfare, is a long-term president of the MNF.
The Manipur factor
Just as things appeared to be going south for the MNF, the Kuki-Meitei clash in Manipur happened in May. Over the weeks, more than 12,500 Kuki-Zo people displaced from Manipur have taken refuge in Mizoram. According to political scientists in the State, this development has offered the MNF and Mr. Zoramthanga a crucial lifeline.
Mr. Zoramthanga took the lead in expressing the Mizo angst against the alleged ethnic cleansing of the Kuki-Zo people in Manipur and supporting the demand for a separate administration for them. His stand angered Manipur’s government and Meitei groups there, but it appeared to have helped the MNF steal a march over its political rivals at home, although Mr. Zoramthanga claimed that it was his party’s performance on the development front that carry weight in voters’ minds. “The Opposition parties are finding it hard to fault us after the stand we have taken for the Zo ethnic communities,” he said.
ZPM president Lalduhoma, a former IPS officer, said that the MNF’s claim to be the only party pursuing “Zo unification” (bringing all areas inhabited by the Zo people together) was aimed only at garnering votes. “All political parties in Mizoram are equally concerned about Manipur’s Kuki-Zo people, and stand in solidarity with them,” he said.
Mr. Lalduhoma also accused the MNF of double-speak by maintaining its friendship with the BJP at the Centre, even while opposing the “saffron agendas”, such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 and the Uniform Civil Code.
Three-cornered contest
Loosely formed and unrecognised in 2018, the ZPM is believed to have shaped up as the strongest challenger of the MNF. Based on its performances in local elections, the ZPM claims to have gained ground.
The Congress — which will contest polls in the State for the first time without five-time Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla helming its campaign — hopes to stage a comeback under new president Lalsawta, a former Minister. The party is banking on a mix of youth and experience in its bid to return to power, exuding confidence by not buckling under pressure from an influential Mizo Students’ Union to drop Meriam L. Hrangchal as its candidate from the Lunglei South constituency. The Union had asked all parties not to field any women candidates married to non-Mizos.
The BJP, on the other hand, obeyed the diktat and replaced Judy Zohmingliani with a male candidate for the Tuivawl seat. Ms. Zohimgliani is married to an Anglo-Indian, while Ms. Hrangchal is married to a Gurkha.
The BJP, though, has fielded the most women – three out of a total of 23 candidates — though that is 16 fewer than in 2018. Of the 174 candidates in the fray this time, only 16 are women. The MNF, ZPM, and Congress have fielded just two women each.
Church-backed poll watchdog
A common platform, with all candidates from a constituency sharing a stage, has been the standard mode of campaigning in Mizoram during the Assembly elections since 2008. It is unlikely to be any different this time, although the Mizoram People’s Forum (MPF) allowed a house-to-house campaign in 2018 on the condition that its volunteers would accompany each candidate to keep a check against possible offers of cash and other allurements.
The MPF, a church-backed election watchdog involving NGO members, has signed agreements with all the political parties to ensure that the poll code of conduct is not violated. “We have a responsibility to ensure a free, fair, and peaceful election,” MPF general secretary Rev. Lalramliana Pachuau said.
