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After a long and storied public life, former IPS officer Lalduhoma is set to become the new Chief Minister of Mizoram. The 73-year-old who won his election from the constituency of Sercchip by 2,982 votes will be the state’s first new CM in three decades.
Lalduhoma’s Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM), a new regional party that is contesting the Assembly polls as a recognised party for the first time, is set to deliver a stunning victory against the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) and as of 1 pm has won 15 constituencies and is leading in 12. With this, the ZPM will break the Congress-MNF duopoly in the state and it will be the first time that a party other than the Congress or the MNF will be voted into power since the state’s formation in 1987. With power having constantly swung between the two parties, the chief ministership alternated between Congress’s Lalthanhawla and MNF’s Zoramthanga since 1993.
After completing his BA degree from the North East Hill University, Lalduhoma joined the Indian Police Service. While in service, he went on to become the security in-charge for then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He resigned from the service in 1984 and joined the Congress, getting elected to the Lok Sabha later that year. In 1988, he ended up becoming the first MP to be disqualified under the anti-defection law after he resigned from the Congress. Before the formation of the ZPM, he had been elected as MLA in 2003 from another party he had founded, the Zoram Nationalist Party.
The ZPM started as a common platform of six smaller regional parties and civil society groups in 2017. It was not a recognised party yet during the Assembly elections in 2018. Instead, there were 38 Independent candidates backed by the platform, of whom eight went on to become MLAs. This made it the second-largest party in the Assembly. In 2019, the ZPM was recognised as a party.
The ZPM announced its arrival with Lalduhoma’s victory in the Serchhip by-election in 2021 which had to be held after his disqualification from the Assembly for “defecting” to the ZPM after being elected as an Independent. The victory stamped his presence in the state’s political landscape.
In the run-up to the elections, the ZPM and Lalduhoma banked heavily on decades of anti-incumbency against both the Congress and the MNF. They accused the MNF of having lost its regional character by being a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Like the MNF, the ZPM also emphasises Mizo identity and Lalduhoma has in the past also spoken in favour of the unification of all areas inhabited by the Zo ethnic group, which includes the Kuki-Zomis of Manipur.
