Aizawl: Lalduhawma has topped every ‘your-favourite-chief-minister’ poll, yet he has never been near the chief minister throne, forget about ascending it, during his three decades of political career.
In the latest favourite chief minister poll, the Zoram Nationalist Party supremo has yet again topped the list with incumbent chief minister Lalthanhawla (of Congress), former chief minister Zoramthanga (of Mizo National Front) following them far behind. Mizoram People’s Conference president and former chief minister Brig T Sailo’s son Lalhmangaiha Sailo is in the bottom.
The irony seems to have frustrated Lalduhawma, as he has expressed dismay over being favourite chief ministerial candidate always and never got elected to be one.
“In a sharp contrast to such opinion polls for favourite chief minister in which I always got the highest votes, my party has been always voted the most unlikely party to form the government,” the Aizawl West-I legislator has said recently.
“This is what has been puzzling me since the last many years. I don’t really understand why I and my party have never been voted to power despite being the people’s most favourite,” the former Lok Sabha member said, adding, ‘I begin to wonder if the people really want good government.’
Blaming the people for electing a party and a chief minister who they disliked, Lalduhawma said, “So long as such political attitude exists, we are not getting anywhere.”
He also criticised those people who ultimately joined the party which they had scathingly attacked.
Lalduhawma also expressed disappointment over lack of public appreciation on his and another MLA’s laudable acts during the previous government.
“I and another legislator Sailothanga Sailo had surrendered our TA/DA’s in 2006 after all the TA/DA’s of MLAs were found to be falsely drawn. Instead of receiving public acclamation, we became a laughing stock,” he said.
Lalduhawma, who joined politics after giving up his job as IPS officer to become Mizoram pradesh Congress president in 1984, got elected as MLA for the first time only in 2003 assembly elections from the erstwhile Ratu constituency.
He and Andrew Lalherliana won the election to enable his party ZNP, which he formed as Mizo National Front (Nationalist) as a splinter group of Mizo National Front in 1997, to participate in the state assembly for the first time.
The ZNP has managed to retain the two-MLA position in the state assembly with him getting elected from Aizawl West-I constituency and another ZNP candidate K Liantlinga from Aizawl South-1 in the 2008 state assembly polls.
Lalduhawma’s political journey is long, winding and sometimes rough. After he joined the Congress party, Lalduhawma was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1984.
After internal rift threw him out of the Congress party, he floated a new political outfit called Mizo National Union in the mid-80s, which later merged with the Brig T Sailo-led People’s Conference (PC) to form Democratic Party (DP).
As the DP lost elections, Lalduhoma in the mid 1990s tried his luck in the Mizo National Front, which was badly in need of an able leader following the death of the founder president Laldenga in 1990.
He soon called the shot and became a presidential candidate, which however caused a split in the party due to the nomination of then vice-president Zoramthanga from the floor by hardcore Laldenga brigade.
He left MNF to form MNF (Nationalist) which was later rechristened Zoram Nationalist Party which he manages to keep alive till date.
Losing no hope, Lalduhoma has recently announced that his party would go it alone in the next assembly elections due for this year end.
The Aizawl Municipal Council elections in which the ZNP-Congress alliance won 10 seats (five each) of the 19 seats was another factor that strengthened Lalduhawma’s dream to bring his party to power one day.
As the state is gearing up for assembly polls slated for November, Lalduhawma is not only confident of winning election but also challenged to take on the present chief minister Lalthanhawla in the latter’s traditional constituency of Serchhip.
“I am willing to contest from Serchhip constituency,” he said on Friday while touring the constituency. “And let Zoramthanga (MNF president) contest too,” he added. (UNI)