Campaign for Mizoram Assembly polls ends
December 1, 2008Aizawl (PTI) Campaign for the elections to the 40-member Mizoram Legislative Assembly to be held on Tuesday ended at 4 pm on Sunday.
Extremely low-key canvassing was witnessed everywhere during the past few weeks in the absence of noisy street campaigns with loud speakers where famous singers enriched public rallies and concerts as in previous elections, except on the day Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed a mammoth rally at the Assam Rifles ground here on November 25.
The canvassing was low-key thanks to the diktats of the powerful church-sponsored Mizoram People’s Forum (MPF) which banned door-to-door canvassing and excessive display of party flags, banners and posters of the candidates.
One or two public meetings, organised by the local forums of the MPF, were allowed in each locality or village, where all the candidates contesting from the constituency shared a common platform to address the voters.
Public rallies and door-to-door campaigns, strictly prohibited by the MPF, were replaced by interviews of the candidates by journalists inside studios of the three main local television networks - LPS, Zonet and Skylinks.
Political parties, candidates and campaigners resorted to sending SMS to ask for votes and a large number of mobile handsets and activated SIM cards were reported to have been distributed to party workers and voters, especially in the rural areas, free of cost.
Mobile phone shop-keepers said that their sale of handsets and SIM cards increased manifold during the hustings.
While many people hailed the efforts of the MPF, the raison d’etre of which is to ensure free, fair and inexpensive polls, many others felt that some of the restrictions were unreasonable and undemocratic.
Mizoram has an electorate of 6,11,124 and women voters outnumbered their male counterparts by 6,654.
The nine women candidates fielded by major political parties is a good sign for the fairer sex as women had been unrepresented in the state law-making body for the past two decades.
Women bodies like the Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP) or the Mizo Women’s Federation and the newly-formed Women Welfare Front (WWF) are optimistic that with women nominees being fielded by major political parties women now have a better chance to make it to the state legislature.
State election officials said that majority of the 2,900 service voters and around 8,000 Bru voters, now lodged in six relief camps in neighbouring Tripura have exercised franchise through postal ballots.
There are 205 candidates seeking their fortunes which included more than 30 people below 40 years of age, most of them first-timers.
The oldest candidate is the 85-year-old former chief minister and chief ministerial candidate of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Brig. Thenphunga Sailo who is contesting from the prestigious Aizawl West-II seat where he is pitted against 36-year-old Lalruatkima of the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) and the Congress lone woman candidate Zothankimi.
The MNF contested 39 seats while its pre-poll partner the Mara Democratic Front (MDF) is contesting from one constituency.
The Congress is contesting all the 40 seats and the UDA, a pre-poll alliance of the Mizoram People’s Conference and the Zoram Nationalist Party (ZNP) is contesting 37 seats.
Political parties like the BJP, the NCP, the Lok Janshakti Party and Lok Bharti also fielded candidates and there are 36 independent candidates.
Mizoram-Bangladesh border Mamit constituency has the largest number of candidates with 11 nominees including three independents in the fray while South Mizoram’s Lunglei West seat has only three contestants - Education Minister Dr R Lalthangliana of the MNF, former legislator J Lawmzuala of the Congress and C Zokhuma of the UDA.
State election officials told PTI that most of the polling parties have left their district headquarters for duty and very few would be leaving by tomorrow.
The state government has sealed 722-kilometre-long international border with Myanmar and Bangladesh and also its border with Manipur, Assam and Tripura to ensure that insurgent groups should not interfere during the polls.
Most of the polling stations in the border areas are classified as hyper-sensitive or sensitive and additional state police personnel were deployed along the borders, especially with Manipur and Assam while the BSF and the Assam Rifles are manning the international borders.
State Deputy Inspector General of Police L Hrangnawn told PTI that besides deploying more forces on the border areas, intensive patrolling have also been undertaken in the sensitive areas where militants had earlier sneaked into the state.
The Centre has sent five additional companies of central para-military forces as against the state’s plea for 15 additional companies Hrangnawna added.
Mizoram has three Mizoram Armed Police battalions and four India Reserve battalions besides state police spread over all the eight districts.
- PTI
