Aizawl: The Congress yesterday won a thumping victory in Mizoram, a state that it gets to rule now for the second consecutive term.
The Congress retained power by zooming past the halfway mark in the 40-member assembly by winning 27 seats and being ahead in at least one more constituency.
Congress leader and Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, 71, was elected to the state assembly for a record ninth time. This is for the fifth time the Congress has come to power in the northeastern state of Mizoram, which shares borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh. In the outgoing assembly, the Congress had 32 seats.
“There was not a single instance of irregularities of our government. People voted us seeing the success of our government,” Lal Thanhawla, who is also the state Congress chief, said after the emphatic win.
Lal Thanhawla established the Congress base in the tribal and Christian dominated state. Thousands of Congress activists celebrated across the state as election results began to pour in.
According to election officials at about 6pm, Congress candidates won 27 seats and were leading in one seat while the opposition three-party Mizoram Democratic Alliance (MDA) led by the Mizo National Front (MNF) has won four seats and Mizoram People’s Conference was leading on one seat in this state of over one million people. The Nationalist Congress Party candidate was also leading on one seat.
Lal Thanhawla contested from two constituencies and won both Serchhip and Hrangturzo seats, defeating his nearest MNF and Mizoram People’s Conference rivals.
Lal Thanhawla, who with this election has been elected to the state assembly for a record nine times since 1978, defeated his nearest MNF rival C Lalramzauva, a lawyer and a three-term former legislator, in Serchhip by a margin of 734 votes while he retained the Hrangturzo seat beating MPC opponent Lalthansanga by 1,628 votes.
Over 81 percent of the total 690,860 voters exercised their franchise across the state on November 25 to elect a new 40-member assembly. IANS
