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Mizoram to see tough contests for many seats

— PHOTO: RITU RAJ KONWAR

Getting ready: Electronic voting machines being distributed in Aizawl on the eve of the Assembly elections.

Guwahati: Mizoram will go to the polls on Tuesday to elect a 40-member Assembly. In all, 6,12,439 voters will decide the fate of 206 candidates, including nine women.

Polling teams left from Aizawl and other district headquarters on Monday with electronic voting machines and other poll materials for different polling stations.

Prominent among those in the fray are Chief Minister and president of the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) Zoramthanga, PCC president and the former Chief Minister, Lalthanhawla, and 86-year-old World War II veteran and the former Chief Minister, Brigadier (retd.) T. Sailo.

Brig. Sailo heads the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) consisting of the Mizoram People’s Conference(MPC), the Zoram Nationalist Party (ZNP) and the Zoram Kuthnathawktu Pawl (ZKP). Poll pundits have predicted a tough three-cornered battle among the three key players — the MNF, the Congress and the UDA.

The ruling MNF has fielded candidates in 37 seats, leaving two seats to the Mizoram Congress Party (MCP) and one seat to the Maraland Democratic Front (MDF).The Opposition Congress is contesting 48 seats and has left two seats to its ally, the Hmar People’s Conference (HPC). In the 2003 elections, the MNF won 21 seats, the Congress 12, the MPC 3, the ZNP 2, the MDF 1 and the HPC 1.

The Bru refugee voters, who have been living in six camps in Tripura and two in Mizoram for the past 11 years, cast their postal ballots on November 28. The tribal refugees initially refused to vote as the postal ballots did not contain the symbols of the contesting candidates. They, however, relented after the Election Commission arranged for fresh ballot papers containing the symbols.

A report "Mizoram to see tough contests for many seats" (December 2, 2008) was incorrect in saying that the Opposition Congress is contesting 48 seats, leaving two seats to its ally, the Hmar People's Conference (HPC). It should have been "contesting 38 seats". Mizoram has a 40-member Assembly, as mentioned in the first paragraph.

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