GUWAHATI: The NGO Coordination Committee of Mizoram has expressed satisfaction with the assurances given by the Election Commission of India delegation in Aizawl that a replacement for chief electoral officer SB Shashank is likely to be effected in the “next few days” and that the Bru voters would exercise their franchise “within Mizoram and not in transit camps.”
Leader of the NGO committee and president of the Young Mizo Association (YMA), Vanlalruata told The Shillong Times on Saturday that deputy election commissioner, Sudeep Jain, who is currently leading the ECI delegation in Mizoram, assured that CEO Shashank would be replaced and that Bru voters would exercise their franchise in Mizoram and not in transit camps.
“The deputy election commissioner has assured that the CEO is likely to be replaced in the next few days and that the Bru voters would cast their votes within the state of Mizoram. He is currently in Mizoram and things would be settled only after he goes back to Delhi and submits his report,” Vanlalruata said.
The NGO Coordination Committee had also urged the ECI to take adequate precautionary measures and action to ensure that the situation in Kolasib district, which houses a majority of people from the Bru community, is under control ahead of the November 28 Assembly election in the state.
On the NGO panel’s proposal for reinstatement of principal secretary (home) Lalnunmawia Chuaungo, who was transferred to the Union home ministry recently after the CEO had reportedly complained of “direct interference” by the state government in preparation for the Assembly polls, Vanlalruata said that he was “hopeful that Chuaungo would be reinstated before the elections”.
“We have requested the ECI to reinstate L. Chuaungo who has been shifted to the home ministry for a brief period. We are hopeful that he will be back to his post ahead of the polls,” he said.
It may be mentioned that the situation in the poll-bound state was tense few days back with NGOs, civil society and residents demanding the ouster of the Shashank as many “were not happy with his style of functioning” and his “pro-Bru stand” in the wake of refugees from the community preferring to vote from the camps in Tripura as against casting their votes in Mizoram.
The NGO panel had even said that the CEO was “creating a rift in society and that he no longer enjoyed the confidence of the people for the conduct of free and fair elections in Mizoram.
Even chief minister, Lal Thanhawla too had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking the removal of the CEO as “people had lost faith in him.
