GUWAHATI: The Mizo National Front (MNF) wants to do a Himanta Biswa Sarma on the Congress in poll-bound Mizoram. Just like the BJP won over Sarma from the Congress, which proved to be the Opposition party’s undoing not only in Assam but several other Northeastern states, MNF got R Lalzirliana, considered brilliant at political engineering, to cross over to its camp in September. And now, the party hopes Lalzirliana will help it achieve what Sarma did for the BJP — decimate the Congress.
“Two Congress legislators joined us recently. One of them, Lalzirliana, who was Mizoram’s home minister, is our Himanta Biswa Sarma,” MNF chief and two-time former chief minister Zoramthanga said.
Lalzirliana, though, was humble in his response. “It feels good what our party president said about me. However, Sarma is a far greater politician than me. There cannot be any comparison,” he said.
Sarma was a close lieutenant of three-time former Assam CM Tarun Gogoi of the Congress. He defected to the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections after falling out with Gogoi and being disillusioned with Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.
Widely known as a master election strategist, Sarma was instrumental in securing victory for the BJP in one state after another in the Northeast. He played a vital role in poaching the MLAs of other political parties every time the BJP struggled in the numbers game. He is also a key man in the BJP in the selection of candidates.
Lalzirliana, too, had been a charismatic leader in Mizoram Congress for years. He was first elected to the Assembly in 1998 when the Congress was routed by the MNF-Mizoram People’s Conference combine. Only six Congress candidates, including him, could win in that election. He has not lost an election since. In the Congress, he was considered the right-hand man of Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla.
An MNF leader said Lalzirliana’s role in the party has been that of a “game-maker”. “The MNF’s popularity is increasing with every passing day since he has joined. Also, there has been a large-scale defection of Congress workers to the MNF in the past month. People now have more faith in the party,” he claimed.
While the MNF is pinning hopes on upsetting the Congress applecart through Lalzirliana, the going is surely not going to be easy. Despite anti-incumbency, the Congress sits pretty.
“We are confident that people will vote for the Congress to allow the government’s development initiatives to continue. In any case, people have tried and tested the MNF before and it had failed to deliver,” Lal Thanhawla said.
Mizoram, the last Congress-ruled state in the Northeast, will go to elections on November 28. A tight contest is expected between the Congress and the MNF. It’s one state in the Northeast where the BJP has not yet been able to gain a foothold.