Mizo students’ body stages rally against Cong for fielding woman married to non-Mizo

Aizawl: Student body Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) on Friday organised a massive protest rally on Friday against the Congress fielding a Mizo woman who got married to a non-Mizo person in the November 7 Mizoram Assembly elections.

During the protest rally, MZP Spokesman Ricky Lalbiakmawia said that they would intensify their agitation to ensure that Mizo women, who are married to non-Mizo or non-tribal, are not elected in any elections.

The influential MZP, also known as Mizo Student’ Association, in December last year and August this year had appealed to all political parties not to nominate any Mizo woman who got married to a non-Mizo person or a non-tribal, maintaining that it would ensure that such a candidate is not elected in the November 7 Assembly polls.

“Most political parties have followed our appeal but the Congress defied it," Lalbiakmawia told the media and said : “We are committed to preserving Mizo culture and identity besides the customary law.”

The opposition Congress nominated Meriam L. Hrangchal for the Lunglei South assembly constituency and she already filed her nomination paper.

Hrangchal is married to a Gorkha and had been under attack from the influential student organisation.

The Congress has fielded two women candidates, the other one being former minister of state Vanlalawmpuii Chawngthu. Hrangchal is the daughter of former Deputy Chief Minister Lalhmingthanga, a prominent politician, who died recently. Her husband, though a Gorkha, has a Mizo name – Dipen Zoliana, and is also a Christian and a church elder of the Baptist Church of Mizoram.

Congress leaders said that Hrangchal’s husband and his relatives have been descendants of the Gorkhas and have been residing in Mizoram before 1950 and are bona fide residents of Mizoram. Unless the Election Commission rejects her nomination during scrutiny (on Saturday) on the ground that Hrangchal married a non-tribal and a non-Mizo and cannot contest the polls, she would be contesting from Lunglei South assembly seat, the Congress leaders maintained.