AIZAWL: The Congress hoping to secure Hmar votes by diligently wooing the Hmar People’s Convention ahead of the 10th Assembly election, slated for December 2. The Hmar Christian tribal electorate is around 40,000 in the state that has 611,124 voters. The Congress has given nominations to two candidates of the HPC in Serlui and Chalfilh constituencies. Since HPC is not a registered political party, it can accept nominations from registered ones.
The Congress’s move comes days after the HPC’s dissident faction declared its support for the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF).
The Mizoram PCC also hopes to gain from a rift in the Opposition Mizoram People’s Conference.
Last week, the vice-president of Mizoram People’s Conference, J.V. Hluna, deserted the party and floated the Reformed Mizoram People’s Conference Party.
H.C. Malsawma, one of the secretaries of the Mizoram People’s Conference, also joined Hluna.
PCC president and three-time chief minister of Mizoram Lalthanhawla said the Congress was ready to make a comeback this year riding on the anti-incumbency wave.
Mizoram’s educated youth are seething with frustration over lack of jobs and economic growth and the Congress hopes to cash in on the MNF’s “lapses”, Lalthanhawla said over phone from his constituency in Serchhip township near Aizawl.
He said his party would also cash in on the mounting grievances of the state government employees, nearly 45,000 of them, over salary revisions and other benefits.
If voted to power, the Congress would modernise farming, replace jhum cultivation with horticulture and floriculture by introducing new land laws, he said.
Having chalked out the campaign agenda, the Mizoram Congress has also drawn up its star campaigners’ list.
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi and DoNER minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, among others, are expected to campaign in the state later this month.
Source: www.telegraphindia.com
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