He was disqualified twice under the Anti-Defection Law of 1985 as a lawmaker. And he failed four times to provide Mizoram an alternative to the Congress, the party he had cut his political teeth in, and the Mizo National Front (MNF).
The belief that the Christian-majority Mizoram had space for a political party that would be “different” from both Congress and MNF bore fruit for Lalduhoma on Monday, 25 years after he set out to carve out a niche for the Zoram Nationalist Party, which eventually became the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) following a merger with five other regional parties.
Trumps former CM
The ZPM won 27 of the State’s 40 Assembly seats with Mr. Lalduhoma, a former Indian Police Service officer, set to become the Mizoram’s sixth Chief Minister. He retained the Serchhip seat where he had defeated former Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla of Congress in 2018.
It will not be the first time for him at the Chief Minister’s Office, though; he served as a principal assistant to the State’s first Chief Minister, C. Chhunga from 1972-77 before cracking the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
Oversaw Indira Gandhi’s security cover
His exploits in Goa as an IPS officer helped him take charge of the security for former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1982. Influenced by her, he left his job and joined the Congress, which made him the State president in May 1984, seven months after he was elected to the Lok Sabha from the lone seat in Mizoram.
As Mrs. Gandhi’s envoy, he was sent to London to broker peace with Laldenga, the chief of the MNF that transformed from an extremist group into a political party after the Mizo Peace Accord of 1986.
Mr. Lalduhoma fell out with the Congress and withdrew his membership from the party in 1986, which was seen as a violation of the Anti-Defection Law of 1985. Two years later, he became the country’s first MP to be disqualified under this law.
History repeated itself when he was disqualified under this law again in 2020 — this time as an MLA. The charge against him was that he served as a leader of the ZPM despite being elected as an independent.
He was re-elected from Serchhip in the by-election in 2021. “My disqualification was unjustified as I have remained faithful to the ZPM. I could not help being elected as an independent because the registration of the party was not completed by the 2018 Assembly election,” he said.
‘Winds of change’
Ahead of the November 7 election, Mr. Lalduhoma told The Hindu that the winds of change in Mizoram were blowing in favour of the ZPM. “The people are fed up with the large-scale corruption and nepotism during the rule of MNF and Congress. We promised them a new system, we will strive to fulfill it,” he said.
The ZPM leader hopes to live up to the expectations of the people with his new team — 33 of the 40 candidates of the party were newcomers — and by working out a strategy that would enable him to maintain a healthy relationship with the NDA government at the Centre while maintaining a distance on ideological grounds.
