GUWAHATI: The hunt for the new chief electoral officer (CEO) in poll-bound Mizoram has begun after the incumbent, SB Shashank, who had courted a controversy by taking some alleged arbitrary decisions, fell from the grace.
Sources said as desired by the Election Commission (EC), the state’s Congress government suggested the names of three IAS officers – H Lalengmawia, K Lalthawmmawia and Lalhmingthanga – for the CEO’s post.
SB Shashank was under fire from the Mizoram NGO Coordination Committee (MNCC), which is a conglomerate of some powerful Mizo civil society organisations, for his alleged pro-Bru stance. The NGOs had been demanding that the displaced Brus, some 32,000 of whom are lodged in relief camps in Tripura, should cast their votes in Mizoram and not in the neighbouring state. Shashank was allegedly making efforts to ensure that they could cast their votes at the relief camps which they did in the past few elections.
The MNCC was also enraged with him for lodging a complaint with the EC against the state’s principal secretary (home) Lalnunmawia Chuaungo. Based on the complaint, the EC had relieved Chuaungo of all duties and transferred him to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. He is a Mizo IAS officer of Gujarat-cadre.
Shashank had accused Chuaungo of meddling in electoral rolls revision of the displaced Brus and in the “process of security management of conduct of election”.
Earlier, the MNCC had set a deadline of November 5 to Shashank to leave Mizoram. Two days later, he left the state for Delhi after being summoned by the EC.
A high-level delegation of the EC, which held a series of meetings with Mizo groups and organisations in Aizawl on Friday, had reportedly assured the MNCC that Shashank’s replacement would be made in two days and that the displaced Brus would have to cast their votes in Mizoram.